This 15-Minute DIY Made My Living Room Sofa Look Like a Million Bucks (It’s So Vintage!)

I’ve always loved fringe as a decor accent, especially on furniture. While I’ve come across many beautiful sofas with bullion fringe trim over the years, most of these pieces have fallen outside of my budget — a few even teetering on five figures! So when shopping for a new couch a few months ago, I had an idea: Why not buy an affordable sofa and add my own fringe onto it? 

This simple, tufted sofa from Wayfair caught my eye, and it arrived at my doorstep in just a couple of days. The exact style I ordered is now out of stock, but you can find many similar pieces. I wasn’t crazy about the nailhead border around the bottom of the piece, but that didn’t actually matter, as I knew I’d be covering it up with the fringe trim anyway. 

Once the sofa was assembled, I turned to Google in search of a DIY fringe trim tutorial. I was in luck: Lauren Shaver, the author behind one of my favorite DIY blogs, Bless’er House, had posted the instructions for a similar project, and I was eager to follow them given that her own sofa had turned out beautifully. 

Using Shaver’s guidance, I measured the distance from the nailhead border to the floor to determine what length of fringe trim I should order. Note that most people would be able to base this off of their sofa leg height, but I had to go a bit higher to cover the nailhead. 

I decided that while bold-colored fringe trim can look beautiful, I was most comfortable opting for something neutral since the rest of my living room is plenty vibrant already. After a quick search, I found 15 feet of 9-inch-long beige trim on Etsy and placed my order immediately.

Installing the trim, the idea of which daunted me a bit, was actually incredibly easy. Shaver noted in her tutorial that the process took her just 15 minutes, which seemed shocking to me initially, but was accurate. Using the $6 straight pins I ordered at Shaver’s recommendation, I tacked the fringe trim to my sofa with ease, placing it where I wanted it to go around the sofa base’s perimeter and sticking in the pins at intermittent intervals to secure it in place. 

I used far fewer pins than Shaver did, opting to only place them where I felt necessary. I did this because I didn’t want people to notice the pins, figuring fewer would mean they’d be more discreet on the whole. While you can definitely still see the pins I used if you look for them, I wouldn’t say they’re glaringly obvious. And the fringe trim is still nice and secure despite me skimping a bit pin-wise.

I can’t believe such a simple DIY project changed the appearance of my sofa so dramatically. The finished product looks so elevated and fits my design style to a T. Better yet, in the event my personal aesthetic changes and I want to remove the trim, I can easily do so in minutes. Had I shelled out thousands of dollars for a premade sofa with trim, I wouldn’t have the same option!