With the help of David’s parents, we finally got the porch swing David built me all ready for the beautiful warm weather!
First, we took an old twin mattress we had and bought a zippered, [easyazon_link identifier=”B00WFHOCB4″ locale=”US” tag=”farmhouse020-20″]waterproof mattress cover[/easyazon_link].
David wove rope through the links to soften the look and we were deciding between the natural rope or the white rope– we went with natural.
Next comes the cool part. David’s mom– as busy as she is– took the time during their most recent visit to sew a cover and pillows for the mattress using outdoor fabric we found at a local fabric discount shop and her own sewing machine she brought with her!!
How amazing is that?! I mean really!!
She made the mattress cover using three pieces of [easyazon_link identifier=”B004TMHQPM” locale=”US” tag=”farmhouse020-20″]Sunbrella green fabric[/easyazon_link] that she sewed together so there wasn’t one seam down the middle. Then she made a loop around the edges and my father-in-law used a metal clothes hanger to thread elastic all the way through.
He used a safety pin to pin the elastic to the end of the metal clothes hanger so it would weave itself all the way around… is that not genius?
Here he and David are (in our dining room) getting it all evened out.
They fitted it on the mattress while Evie and I supervised.
The dogs supervised, too. 🙂
Ta da!!! Finished mattress cover! I LOVE it.
As if that weren’t enough, she then sewed a bunch of adorable pillows out of more outdoor fabric.
I bought the [easyazon_link keywords=”navy blue trellis pillows plow & hearth” locale=”US” tag=”farmhouse020-20″]navy blue trellis[/easyazon_link] ones from Plow & Hearth’s outlet store for something like $12 a piece and had the green, yellow and blue floral ones already in my family room, but she sewed the five in the back!
Words can’t describe how grateful I am to David’s mom and dad for all of their work on this project! It turned out beautifully, did it not?! 🙂 I can vouch for how comfortable this is… having taken a few catnaps on it already!… and am super excited to have this all done in time for spring and summer. With the ceiling fans on the back porch, something tells me we’ll be enjoying a lot of time on this porch swing.
I just wanted to add a tip. now that you have an adorable swing. its worth taking the time and money to get a good waterproofing cover for it. i made one myself using a used waterproof mattress cover i had from http://www.protectabed.com/content/mattress_protectors.asp and it has extended the life of my swing. great website. i love it. best of luck
Thanks Anne! That’s a really good tip!