How to Paint a Sofa with Fabric Paint: An Interior Designer explains how

Interior designer Emma Carberry, who runs her own independent lifestyle store Form and Balance gave her sofa a real transformation and talks us through how to paint a sofa with fabric paint. 

'I love upcycling pieces to compliment my home and I don’t feel that you have to buy new to do this.'

Emma picked up a grey couch from a warehouse sale which was badly damaged at the back, ripped underneath and had a few dark paint spills on the side.

She started off by giving her sofa a good hoover and clean and then mixed her Fabricoat Olive Fabric Paint with Fabricoat Dark Brown Fabric Paint before using a spray bottle of water to dampen the areas she wanted to paint. 

To get her deep olive hue, she used 0.5 litres of Fabricoat in the shade Olive with about one fifth Dark Brown.

Emma knew from reading our site, that piled fabrics like velvet, faux-suede, and chenille will need twice as much product because of the greater surface area of the material. 

"While the fabric is damp, brush on the paint evenly, for the final brush stroke try to go in the direction of the fabric if it’s a velvet", she said.

"I found the best way was to keep the fabric slightly damp and keep brushing the fabric using an upholstery brush between coats,' Emma advises. 'When the first coat went on I panicked cause it was looking a bit patchy and felt quite stiff however, by the second coat it was looking and feeling exactly the way I wanted it to."

"Leave to dry and repeat. I gave ours about two coats plus touch ups."

Emma got some amazing national news coverage including Livingetc which highlighted that a fabric transformation makes it way cheaper than buying a new sofa. The transformation has racked up more than 39,000 views and some of the comments are things we hear daily. 

"Wow. This has blown my mind, it looks amazing."

"Love this!! So cool you can do that. The colour is gorg"

"Wow! I had no idea you could even do this."

"Blows my mind that this was painted."

If in doubt, get the fabric paint out. It’s time to use your imagination! 

Check out our range of colours and tools to help you get started on your Fabricoat journey.

You can find more information on how to apply Fabricoat in our How to section and if you have a query on how much fabric paint you'll need to get similar results to Emma, check out our FAQs.

All images credited to Emma Carberry @Form and Balance.