Seems like everywhere you look something new is being used as a canvas. So it’s no surprise that the next big thing to hit the streets comes straight from your living room — the Painted Sofa.
Painting a couch can be a work of art, but also something quite practical. Companies like Fabric Spray Paint offer permanent, non-toxic spray paints for your furniture.
Other people have had success using basic latex wall paint and mixing in Textile Medium, which helps the paint adhere to fabric.
Whether you choose to paint your couch for fun or function, let us know how it goes and send in your examples to newyork(at)apartmenttherapy(dot)com.
(Images: 1: with permission from samanpwbb; 2 blogdowntown; 3 Andrew Martin; 4 Paintings I Love)
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Comments (18)
Perfect for a rented college house. I imagine it being one of those objects the tenants leave in the house for the next occupant.
Sometimes it's art, sometimes it's trash. Just like paint on canvas.
One of the more tolerable examples is this kids-painted chair auctioned off for charity at a children's hospital:
http://atlantishome.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/08/branded-chair.html
Finally, some weird, crazy, cheesy, kitsch idea that actually makes some sense....
After some technical issues are resolved... the final products could be just absolutely astounding!
Just as long as it doesn't end up on the front porch..
It depends on the paint work. The ones on the 1st and 3rd pics are more likely to fit in a bar or sth like that. I wouldnt have one of these in my living room, thou! =)
I love the first two examples. Not for my space, personally, but I LOVE them!!!!!!
I somehow wanted to say "trash" initially, but as I look at them...I really do like them, and more so, I'm very taken by just the idea of them! In talented hands, of course, this idea is so boldly unique...this is really thinking beyond the norms of how we perceive furniture; oddly, it even seems to make sense, considering how intimately connected...ok, I'll stop now...these are just great! I wish I had a fraction of the creativity exhibited w/this idea.
This reminds me of the "Hippy House" back in highschool.. where we'd all run off to during lunch to smoke up and wind up vegging during 3rd period. Weird graffitti all over the place, clouds on the ceiling...
I'm going with trash. Unless you're intoxicated, in which case, "groovy".
love 'em
The first two pictures look like one of my nightmares. Not something on which I'm going to ask anyone to rest their old bones. Just because it's new and weird doesn't make it good design. However, I can definitely see repainting a vinyl couch for revitalization purposes. Likely we'll see couch stencils soon, which will be hot like wall decals and get old just as fast.
P.S. I still want a wall decal of an elephant on my wall. In or out, it's better than me trying to paint one.
trash
Trash - put them back on the curb you found them.
Nobody is sitting in any of the sofa pictured here.
Because they're smelly, sticky trash.
Yikes. Ya, no dice.
Maybe if they weren't so busy or if it was less like a mural in couch form.
I would like to see something more subdued.
It's not trash. It's art.
Trash- you can't USE a couch that's been painted, and I have had enough of (formerly useful, now useless) painted objects. Also- definitely over this whole "urban" style- totally impractical and UGLY.
On the pretentious side, they also look like something painted by a teenager that feels using spray paint is "cool". Ripped off/ Japanimized cartoon imagery is trite- NOT ART.
thank god we are all different!, I would have the sofa from the second pic in my living room in a second. Hard work and talent has gone into it. Each to their own I say.