1/6th couch/sofa tutorial

I’ve been meaning to make Max and Juno a new living room sofa for months and the other night I had a sudden burst of inspiration and this was the result!

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

I took photos as I went along to create a mini tutorial of sorts so I thought it might be of some use to you lot. :3

Supplies Needed:

Fabric
Felt/thick fleece/padding
Foam
Wood effect paper
Wooden beads
Mountboard/thick card
Glue gun
Fabric glue
Tacky Glue
Flat-headed pins
Wire
Leather (optional)

I will preface this by saying that despite having a three year modelmaking course under my belt I’m still incredibly bad at measurements and pretty much did this by eye based on what looked right next to a doll so I won’t be giving any size dimensions I’m afraid!

Ok, so to begin with I liberated this cardboard container from my box stash - I think it was once a drawer from a box of fancy shampoo my mum got or something - it’s literally just card though so it would be easy to make from scratch but it does speed the whole process up a lot!

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

I bought a foam kneeling pad from the £1 shop a while back for this very project but really anything would do for the arms, even wood tbh. I liked the foam as it was easy to work with and had a nice level of squish.

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

The drawers are of course optional on a project like this but I liked the idea of functional storage. Don’t forget to use a metal set square to keep your sides straight!

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

The box was pretty sturdy but I didn’t want the sides to buckle once the holes for the drawers were cut out so I glued in some wooden lolly sticks for a bit of support. As they were on the underside I didn’t even try to make it look tidy.

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

I originally intended to cover the entire sofa with fabric but I literally only had enough for the seat, arms and back panel so I had to improvise!

I’m a big fan of free wallpaper samples for crafting needs and I ended up buying a full roll of this stuff on sale ages ago. Unfortunately it’s full pattern is of wooden crates rather than just wood texture so I don’t have much to work with but I love the wood grain.

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

The back of the sofa was just a thick piece of card with multiple layers of fleece glued on for padding.

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

I sewed some of this by hand and some with my machine for speed but it could just as easily be glued.

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

Once everything was fully covered, I started to glue things in place.

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

I used some scrap mountboard and more of the wallpaper to make the front part of the arms. They’re a little wonkier than I intended but never mind.

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

When I was gluing the arms to the back panel I was having trouble getting them to look truly attached from the front, so I improvised...

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

1/6th scale sofa step-by-step guide. :3 by Christine Sutcliffe, on Flickr

Aaaand that’s it! Hopefully you’ll see it in situ at some point soon - I started on more dio stuff so my desk isn’t clear to set up the living room right now. XD

Anyway, I hope this helps and if anyone makes anything similar with this guide I’d love to see it!

Thank you for sharing it with us, Christine. It looks great and does serve as an excellent step-by-step guide as to how to construct this type of furniture in our hobby.

Great Work ! It looks so cozy. The wood effect wall paper is fantastic, i will swear it´s made out of wood. I love the Unicorn Pillow

Top-notch work. From the first couple photos, you can’t tell just how much work went into this. Fantastic. By the way, who’s the new girl?

Thanks a lot for sharing that step by step! That sofa looks so cool, and I love the "realism" you put in every detail, the funcioning drawers, the mattress structure, the drawers handles...

Amazing work and lovely result!

That's really helpful! The right wood texture really does some tricks.

Thanks for sharing! Great tutorial!

Cheers guys! I’m finally starting on a kitchen/dining room for them so you’ll hopefully see something of that nature soon!

Oh this is the wallpaper btw, as you can see it has lots of really nice textures, but the pattern does limit its usefulness somewhat.

https://www.ilovewallpaper.co.uk/wallpaper-c1/distinctive-wood-crates-wallpaper-brown-fd40943-p2898

The unicorn pillow started out as a pair of novelty socks!

Heh, the new girl isn’t new at all, she’s my generic scale checking/clothes fitting mannequin I use instead of risking my faves! I originally had her head as one of my fantasy characters until I upgraded to a kumik one, so she’s just become kind of a nobody I’m afraid! XD

Well, she is a super cute nobody. And you have always been so innovative with wallpapers and other similar products. Nice to see them play a part in this more substantial build.

Awesome work and great tutorial! I'm probably way too lazy to make one from scratch [I prefer to expend my very limited energy on the figures themselves], but I still love seeing how to do it broken down so helpfully!

A NOBODY?! That’s a shame...

I’m sure she’ll gain an identity eventually, lol, I’ve just got so many characters now I’d much rather get round to introducing!

That's adorable! And your "nobody" girl looks super cute sitting on the couch!

Oo that's a really useful tutorial, I may give it a shot...! And the principles of it can be used for different furniture types, which is awesome.

Good work!

Very nice both in execution and instructions! I may have to give this a shot down the line.

Wow, I was going to buy furniture on Ebay, but I should try to DIY it to follow your tutorial. Thank you for sharing it.

Toyboy wrote:Wow, I was going to buy furniture on Ebay, but I should try to DIY it to follow your tutorial.  Thank you for sharing it.

Nice! Thank you for bumping up this older topic I had not seen! The suggestions here will prove useful for some current projects I'm working on considering starting!

Thanks for the tutorial! The working drawers are a very cool element!