I made my dogs a bed.

(Matt helped.)

It all started when we replaced our 14 year old couch.

It looked like this:

Except it wasn't in the yard covered with leaves and it had seat cushions.

The couch had been through three babies and toddlers, two cats and lots of kittens and two puppies.

Needless to say, it was embarrassing.

The cushions were saggy, the stuffing was lumpy and it was dirty.

I didn't want to take it to the dump but I also would've felt like a goober trying to pawn my stinky, old couch off onto someone else so I decided to use it.

See that bottom frame thing?

 (Yes, I had a couch on my front porch and maybe part of it is still there because I haven't had time to take it to the dump.  Don't judge me.)

 I knew I wanted to use it, so I unscrewed it from the couch.  It looked like this:

 Then I pieced them together to figure the size I wanted (roughly the size of the two couch pillows in the picture because those are the pillows the dogs always want to lay on).

I cut the pieces and laid it all out to make sure it was the right size.

Matt used the remaining two pieces of frame as supports and cut a piece of plywood to fit snugly in the bottom (he didn't want it to break in the event that a random visiting child decided to step in it).

I painted it black with the intent of roughing it up with some sandpaper to give it that "Pottery Barn" look but decided I liked it the way it was.

That's me painting furiously (photo courtesy of Summer).

 The new cover left me with a pile of not-so-clean-slightly-snagged khaki material in a giant heap on the floor:

That was actually only a small piece of it.

We washed it and it came so clean that I could have used it for the couch except that it had a LOT of snags (they must have had a cat).  I was seriously impressed because this couch was covered in crayon marks and soda stains and it all came out in one regular, untreated wash.

Now what was I to do with yards of clean (slightly snagged) khaki material?

You guessed it!

Make the dog bed cushions.

I then used the back part of the old couch cushions as the stuffing (which is why they are missing from the first picture).

And the end result is this:

Maybe likes it because she has a corner and Taxi (who was being camera shy) has a corner.

I found the little black pillow at a thrift shop for fifty cents.

I think it's cute but I'm not sure the dogs appreciate the touch of class it brings to the piece.

And yes, that is their dog food jar and yes, it is empty.

Good thing our neighbors have dogs and therefore, dog food.

In conclusion:

Don't throw out that old couch!

Make something out of it, because if I can do it, you can do it.

B

PS--In case you were wondering, my brother took the ottoman and I have begun tearing apart the rest of the couch because I'm going to attempt to make something else out of it and the other couch is also going to become a dog bed that I intend to sell.  Wonder if anyone will buy it?