 Hi, it's Ashley, it's the Handy Homegirl and I am coming to you with the very first project for the Handy Homegirl Vlog. And the project that I wanted to start off with was a pretty big project but I got a lot of questions when I did post my couch, my living room couch on Instagram and a lot of people were like hitting me up like, oh my god how'd you do that? I really went on a run or can you show me, can you come to my house and do it? But you know a lot of people like lived in different states so I couldn't get to the house. So I put together this video to show you how to re-appelster a couch. My couch is very big, it's my boyfriend's old couch and from his old apartment and I re-appelstered it. And it looked like this. And now it looks like this. So yes it's a big difference and I think it looks great. My boyfriend loves it. Everybody, his family comes over and they just can't believe that the couch went from that ugly thing to this fabulous blue couch. He might be offended that I was sitting with a ugly, but it was ugly. No matter if it was Coco Chanel, designer doesn't make it cute. No, it doesn't. The things that she won't need to re-appelster a couch. First and most, you need your fabric. I got too much fabric, I think I got 24 yards, but it's no such thing as too much fabric because you don't want to have too little fabric. Then you want to make sure that you have heavy duty staples. They hold the fabric a lot better than the lighter staples. Then you also want to have a heavy duty staple done. And make sure that the product number matches the product number on the staple done because for some lot of reason all the staples don't fit the same type of done. It's stupid, but that's just how you do it. You also want to make sure you have a flat head screwdriver. I would also maybe do maybe one or two like a big one and a skinny one just so you can get in there and get those staples out. You also want pliers. So when you get those staples out and there are like one end that comes out and the other end stays in, you want to get those pliers and pull it out. And sometimes you even use a hammer. If the staples are really in there, you knock in the hammer to get that screwdriver in between this paper and the wood, you just pull it out. And then also, which is what I did in use. So when you see this video, you won't see me with it, but it glows. Like my hands were so swollen and this is not the part to scare you with this one. I'm telling you to wear some type of glove to keep your hands protected because my hands were swollen and red and I couldn't touch anything for about two days. And this project took me about six days in my professional culture. I watched another YouTuber get a couch and then I just kind of follow what she did. But then she used a lot of material that was understair. So how I did it is I like to see it as starting with the puzzle that's already put together, taking it apart and then putting the puzzle back together. So that's exactly how I did. I took a part piece by piece in the same order that it was are that I took it apart and then I just put it back together with my new fabric. It's very simple. All you really need is the strength of an ox. You need to not be afraid that you're going to mess it up. Take your time. Don't just speed through it because it takes, does take took me six days. But you can do it. Just have patience. Don't try to get it done in one day. And I wish you enjoyed part one of this video, which is going to show you how to strip your couch completely bare to prepare for a poster. I hope you enjoyed the video. See you later. Bye. This is part one of stripping the couch. Okay, here we go. So step one, you want to take off the legs of your couch. All four of them just unscrew them, most couches. You can just unscrew them and you want to save them for later because you're going to put them back on and you're going to put on your new ones, whatever you want. Some people paint them, spray paint them, cover them, fabric, do whatever you like. I just kept mine the way they were. And doing this prepares you to start taking off the black mesh, aka the dust cover that's on the bottom of the couch. So I'm just kind of fast-forwarding my health doing this practice. It's pretty simple. And now you're off to take off the dust cover. You use a flat head screwdriver, the bed, but head in there, pull that staple out. Then you take your pliers and pull extra staples out that may not have come out with your flat head screwdriver. And this person is pretty simple because you want to make sure that you get them out because you won't be able to take the brown fabric like you see on your off if there's still stuff left. And now I'm taking the dust cover off. And you take a piece by piece, don't rip it because you want to use it later. So you don't have to buy a brand new spanky one and 10-clock fabric. And the first piece I take off is the very back of my couch. And now this is the side. So this part I'll start to explain order. There's a certain order that you want to work in when you're taking apart the couch. And the order is, which is a handy tip to use, is writing it down, write down the order that you took it apart. So you saw that I took off my legs. I write that down. I took off the dust cover. I write that down. I took off the back of the couch and those back of the couch, you probably didn't see it in that video, but they have like a staple track. And the track or the tack strip that I'm going to work with is a tack strip. You want to keep those because you're going to, if you don't need new ones, if they're not totally damaged, then you want to put them back on. So say those two. Make sure you're going to leave them in the floor because you might step on them. I've got almost three wins and they're really bad. But yeah, so it's just the order. So the same way that you take the couch part, the very last step is your very first step when it comes to real poster. And Yep, so I'm just taking off the very front because I took off, like I said, the legs, the dust cover, the back. And now I'm working on the very front. Because each piece will reveal kind of what comes next, honestly, like which piece goes where, how these pieces connected. This is the part when I said take your time and think this right here was me not thinking, was me not thinking, I just started cutting stuff. And this is where the mistake happened. But still a cute couch, you know what I'm saying? But yeah, so this is part is showing you my mistake too. I shouldn't have cut that because the second couch ended up doing it the right way. And shouldn't have hurt. So sometimes you don't have to use your, your pliers or your flathead to remove every single stable. It's not necessary. Sometimes you just want to see I'm just yanking that joint. I tried not to rip it in half because I still need to use it to, as my template, to cut out my fabric. But most of the time it'll just come right off if you just pull and since it's the back, the last piece, it just, those staples that are still there are fine. You don't have to take those out. And all done. Woo! That was hard. No, it wasn't that hard. It was fair. It was a lot of fun. But it was, I'm see how easy it was in the end. That's huge. It was really, it was, I was just so proud of myself to finish something that big and get it all done. I'm glad that I showed it with you. So you can even maybe not even start with the project as big as a couch start with a chair. Start with a little grottamin or start with a very small shade or something like that. But try practice. Practice first. I've had a lot of practice on other things starting like with chairs and benches with, you know, to practice my culture. But I hope that you enjoyed that video. The handy homegirl tip for the fabulously frugal decorated review is do not spend too much on material do your research and find some fabulous material for a frugal practice. Okay? And I'll see you next week with another fabulous project. Bye! Until later.