An Adrian Pearsall Sofa? In Minot? $40? (And, Eventually, How to Reupholster a Sofa)

I found this couch on the Minot Varagesale website last night. Every so often (like once a week), I scour the online classifieds (Craigslist, Bisman, and recently - Varagesale.com) for a set of keywords that don't usually change all that much from week to week: mid century, modern, vintage, vintage couch, vintage patio, homecrest, and a few others. I haven't found a ton of stuff up here, but I have found a few things. But it takes just a few minutes, and it's almost as fun as hitting the thrift stores (which I do every Tuesday). So poking around in Varagesale.com, I came across this sofa under one of my keyword searches. I thought to myself, "Hey, that back... those arms... that looks familiar."



I emailed my wife pictures and told asked her if we should go take a look at this the following day. She replied that we should go pick it up this evening. So after work, off we went. We pulled up and the people who had it had put it outside just that morning to make space inside. The teak trim around the base had been cracked and 'repaired' on one side, the fabric was totally shot - which I already had assessed via the photos online, and the foam was rock hard. The legs were nice though, and there was no obvious breaks - it was solid. So into the car it went for the sum of $40 bucks.

Kovi K4053 - Wedgewood

So this evening, onto Google image search we went and typed in a variety of keywords, including "craft associates," and "Pearsall sofa." And pretty rapidly, we realized that it was not a Pearsall. Probably danish from the 50's or 60's. I ripped off the dust covering and was rewarded with a fit fo sneezing from the powdered foam that I found beneath. There was no tag that I could see, but it is built very well with the entire skeleton constructed of white oak. We have several bolts of fabric laying around that we had sourced for various projects that we still need to do, and one of those is a nice blue tweed by Kovi (K4053) in a color they call Wedgewood. We picked this up in 2102 for a set of Saarinen dining side chairs that we were going to redo - but those chairs are long gone now. We have only 8 yards, but this couch is pretty fabric deficient - it has no completely enveloped cushions at all - the seat and back are both attached. So I unrolled the bolt, and it looks like we have enough. I have to order some upholstery supplies - some string, some curve ease, dacron batting (maybe Joanne's has this), some foam, buttons, etc., but I'm going to do a step-by-step on this couch, because I feel it is the kind of upholstery project that lends itself well to DIY.

So stay tuned.