Dye Job

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I bought a used, wooden framed couch a long time ago from a garage sale. One of those “I’m poor and desperate for furniture” moments in my younger life. Since then, new “normal” furniture has replaced the couch in our house – but the couch remains. It has become an outdoor couch that fits perfectly in front of our outdoor fireplace.

Well, apparently summer sun at 4,000 feet (and freezing winters) will do some damage to wood and cushions – no matter what. The wood, though it’s been stained and treated with outdoor products several times, continues to peel and look awful. The cushions I paid to have recovered (double the price of the original couch) in an outdoor canvas that faded noticeably the first summer. The second year they were almost white, with the exception of the shaded spots (the original color was a pretty saturated leaf green).

My husband is sick of this couch. He’s sanded and re-stained every year and said this year we should just buy a metal set and call it good. I have guilt over just having paid for the cushions to be recovered AND we just paid to have a pergola built over our west-facing deck (Love it!). So – I got it in my head to paint it with outdoor house paint and dye the cushions.

For the dying process, I did a bit of research on www.ritdye.com to see if I was crazy to attempt this. Not so. I found it to be a great resource for color formulas and even other crafty dye ideas. If you do this – be sure to read every possible process, hint and tip out there. It really helps to figure out what will work best for you.

First, I washed and then bleached the cushion covers. As it turned out, there were little rust stains that never came out – so I chose to go with an orange color rather than the original green. The dye recipes say to use 3 gallons of water per pound of fabric. Each cushion cover happened to be about a pound, so my calculations were easy. We also have a large stainless utility tub that I did all this in – so the “tub or bucket” method worked for me.

The website mentioned somewhere using salt in the dye bath if using 100% cotton. But I didn’t find that anywhere on the bottle. Same with using a tablespoon of detergent to help even dying. Again – I saw that in one place, but not the other. Well, I did both. I also heated 3 gal. of water on my stove until 160 degrees and poured it in the tub for each dye bath. I had a big stainless paddle for mixing and rotating the fabric while it was still too hot to put gloved hands in the water mix. Be sure to time how long you leave each piece (if doing multiples) to keep things consistent. I left mine in the dye bath about 15 minutes each, and wish I’d have left them longer. After the final wash, they came out almost two shades lighter than I thought they would. Also – if you have a HE washer – do the final wash by hand in a large amount of water. I had some uneven areas that weren’t present before the final wash in my HE washer.

For a random experiment with dye (my first ever) I think it came out okay. The couch is certainly more useable and presentable now than it was before. And when the cushions fade again, I know I can easily fix it with another round of dye. Using my “lessons learned” it will turn out even better the second time around – I hope. At least for this summer season we have a cozy area to watch our fire blaze and roast some mallows, but with all the comforts of home… nice.