Repairing Couch Recliner Footrests
2025-09-25 10:37 - Making
This is my old couch. I got it when I moved into Manhattan and it's followed me here to Maryland. I've already decided it's not going to move with me again. It was cheap when it was new, and it hasn't aged well. I really like the wide arm rests: good for arms, and leaning against, and resting objects on. But since the outside seats are recliners, they don't have a lot to attach to and have sagged after years of that usage. More obviously: the pleather surface of the footrests have worn away. I've wanted to improve this for a while but never got around to it.
Yesterday I finally got off my butt. At a local thrift store, I found a brown sheet for only a few bucks. This morning, I started work in earnest. For some reason I started by imagining a sewn cover, and wasted a lot of effort measuring and trying to lay out something that I could sew. I was hoping to leverage the built in elastic (this being a fitted sheet) to make it naturally "stick" to the footrest. Before too long I realized I'm doing upholstery so I simply got out the staple gun, and things went much quicker.
Each footrest got a piece of batting cut just smaller than it (can't add any thickness around the edges, or it won't fold back into the couch correctly) plus a piece of the sheet. This was stapled around the edges, then reattached. Look closely and you can see where I colored in (with black marker) the bright fabric backing, where the pleather part had worn off, a few years ago. And the much wider section of what has worn off now.
Here it is in place. The color certainly isn't a perfect match, but on the other hand it looks way better than the flaking broken surface underneath! The batting helps smooth out that roughness. A simple and cheap repair, but it will probably last as long as I need it to.
