This old Couch

So the boyfriend's moved in and I've inherited a whole bunch of bachelor furniture.  I guess this whole mess of junk will be as much of a project as he will be.

First project: his old smelly sofa.  His pal Mike found it in the trash years ago and instantly fell in love despite the missing cushions and odd smell that I don't even want to start trying to identify.  I've never reupholstered anything in my life, so this should be interesting...  wish me luck!

I started off by ripping out the piping around each cushion with pliers.

Then, I used a mini screwdriver, a hammer and some needle-nose pliers to pull out about a million staples that were holding the fabric to the wood frame.  First, I wedged the tip of the screwdriver into the base of each staple and hammered it lightly until it was behind the staple.  This helped loosen the staple enough so that I could get a good grip with my pliers.

I grabbed my trusty needle-nose pliers and ripped out all the staples individually.

When I got to the feared buttons, it turned out simpler than I thought.  

Behind the button, the fabric and the foam were these square pieces of cardboard holding the buttons in place.  I simply unattached  the buttons from the cardboard and took both the button and the cardboard off for future use.

And now we have a completely naked couch, except for the cushions (which I plan on doing last).

What a beauty, huh?