couch

10.14.19

0600

Materials:

Two Curtains at 5′-10″ in length

Tools:

Sewing Machine
Sewing Kit

I have an extra set of curtains, which I didn’t want to use anymore. I decided to create a sofa armrest organizer with both curtain pieces. Both curtain pieces were 5 foot 10 in length, and 27 inches wide.

I wanted my sofa armrest organizer to sit at a certain height off the ground, but I also wanted the top half to also tuck underneath the couch cushion. I first measured how high off the ground I wanted my couch armrest organizer. Since I needed to hang it over the sofa armrest and then wrap back over the arm to tuck underneath the cushion, that left about 47 inches to tuck underneath the cushion.

I wanted to store books in the first organizer, which would be fairly heavy, so I needed a lot of the material to tuck under the seat cushion to hold it in place. I actually wanted the top part of the organizer to tuck underneath an entire sofa cushion width, due to the weight that would be applied.

FIRST SOFA ARMREST ORGANIZER:

When I measured out my first design, I wanted the pockets for my books to be 14 inches in height. I first hemmed all of the edges and then I folded one edge to create the 14″ tall pockets. I sewed around the edge of the folded piece (yellow arrows) and then divided the pocket in half, and sewed a dividing line down the center to create two tall pockets (red arrow). These pockets will be able to hold my books and paperwork that I’m currently working on. I wanted my pockets to be a bit taller than the standard paper size (8.5″ x 11″), due to the fact that I knew the width of the pocket might eat up some of the height. I also wanted to be able to hide my books and paperwork, so my pockets wouldn’t look like they were overflowing with paper.

To attach the sofa armrest organizer, I removed the couch cushion on the side of the couch, located how high I wanted to hang the organizer, and then replaced the couch cushion. Since the top half of the fabric organizer is tucked under the couch cushion, it stayed in place.

SECOND SOFA ARMREST ORGANIZER:

I also wanted to create a second design, which would have smaller pockets for smaller items. My second design would have 10 inches in height for the books, and 6 inches for smaller objects.

Using the same sewing method as the first design, I hemmed all of the edges of the fabric material, and then measured 16″ of material at one end. I folded up the 16″ material, sewed along the outside edges of the tall pocket (yellow arrows), which created a giant 16″ tall pocket.

I then took the bottom 6″ of the pocket and folded it up, to create a shorter 6″ pocket at the bottom. This 6″ tall pocket also helped create the 10″ pocket behind the smaller pockets. I then sewed on both of the side edges of the fabric piece (red arrows) and then sewed a dividing line (blue arrow) to create a total of four pockets for this design. I sewed the edges of this design, all the way to the top of the pocket to reinforce the side edges.

Using the same method as the first sofa armrest organizer, I located where I wanted the organizer to hang on my armrest and I tucked the top half of it under the couch cushion on the end.

Since these sofa armchair organizers are made of fabric material, I can toss them into the washing machine and wash them easily. I can also fold them up and put them away if I don’t need to use them. Fabric is my favorite material to work with since it can be taken apart and reused multiple times. I love that it is a very flexible medium and I was able to put my old curtains to good use.

03.09.2016

0700

Materials:

Cloth bags
Short screws that will hold the bags in place

Tools:

Screwdriver

With no coffee table as a furniture piece, means that I have to manipulate the uses of my ottomans. Coffee tables do provide a flat and even surface to place our items on but storage is also necessary. I personally need a place to keep my remote control and reading material. Sometimes that storage is also where I keep a small pile of papers for sketching when I’m watching TV or my cell phone when I want it off of the couch when I’m sitting on the couch.

Since my ottomans have storage space under their lids, I decided to solve my problem by attaching a few canvas bags. These bags are old bags that I’ve had for awhile and I thought they would work great here. I picked my canvas bags due to the strength of canvas itself and the colors are neutral enough that they won’t stand out too much from the ottoman color. I attached the smaller bag with a safety pin and the larger bag with two screws. If you’re going to try this method of attaching bags to an ottoman, I suggest you put a sample weight in the bag as you measure the height that it should hang above the floor. All bags are designed and sewn with different stitches and will fill out in different capacities. Some bags are designed to fill out more on the bottom half of the design and some will not. By placing a sample weight in the bags (ie. remote controls, some papers, a magazine), you will be able to see how the bag will sit against the ottoman with the tension relying on the screws or safety pin(s). If you decide to have a bag for magazines or papers, make sure that there is enough room on both sides of the object so that you can slide it in and out of the pocket with ease. This may take some adjustments when you’re trying to place the location of where the bag is going to sit above the floor.

This system works very well and I can store my remote control, my phone when it’s not being used and even reading material that I’m waiting to read. I’ve used these attachments for years and I actually have another ottoman which also has two bags attached to it with the same method. These bags are also great when you need to store an object(s) that you need access to quickly, such as kids toys. I hope this post was useful for those of you who may use it. Depending on the needs of you and your family, you should pick your canvas bags accordingly, by testing out different sized bags.