Lighten Up! Summer Look For The Couch!

Summer is really here!

Time for the couches at Sweetwater to change into their Summer wardrobe!

Summer calls for smooth, cool fabric and a lighter color palette!

It is pretty simple to make "pseudo summer slipcovers" with very little sewing!

I love how changing out JUST the cushions on the couch creates the Summertime feel I am after!

The couch in the lower level family room is one of those oversized monsters....and it is a solid navy blue! But it was a great Craig's List find and is super comfortable!

Add insult to injury and you see that the carpet is navy blue too!  Sometimes I wonder where my decorating sense is!!!!  

 

The solution for "lightening up" the sofa is a set of "pillow shams" for just the back cushions.

If you need a tutorial for the pillow sham process....hop over to this post on NO BIG DILL!

The cushions are just big pillows with no shaping at all....so this technique works really well!

I had enough fabric to use my "almost no sew box cushion" technique for the window bench...
...you can find a tutorial for making these on the link!






It isn't "exactly" a porch swing.....but it has a lazy summer feel!











I liked the new look of the couch so much that I made winter season covers too!

Now it is a matter of a 15 minutes to go from Winter "cozy" to Summer "breezy" !

The couch in the family room is also sort of "dark"!  The chenille cushions have a soft and warm feeling during the cool months!

But once again...it seems like they need a lighter touch for the summer.


This is where the pseudo part of the slipcovering comes in!

I made big form fitting (like really tight!) tubes of fabric for each of the six cushions!
The fabric is a nice stretchy bottom weight duck!
The stretch is important because it shapes well to the cushion and looks nice and taut!

The bottom cushions on the couch are pretty simple to do.....each end is just tucked in tightly with some gathers on the corners!  This means NO sewing except the long seam for the tubes!
It is also great because taking the covers off to launder them is a simple matter!

The back cushions of the couch are a bit more problematic....because they have an angles shape to them.

I tried tucking the fabric in on them as well...but didn't like the result!


I uses the wrapping and hand sewing technique shown here  to get the nice tight look I was after! Basically...you just fold the corners in like you are wrapping a gift!

The final result is super comfortable and cool to sit on when it is hot and humid!

Is it perfect?  Not by a long shot! 

But the moral of this story is NOT about perfection!

It is about "livin' easy" !

I found some other summery looking slipcover looks that might inspire you to lighten up your own couches!

 This is a cover from Pottery Barn that is drop cloth weight.....hmmmm....bet it would be pretty simple to drape and tuck something like this!

Source

Source

  This look would be easy enough to create with a purchased coverlet and pillow shams.








I would love to hear from you about the ways YOU lighten up for Summer!
Have A Wonderful Day!

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