Sofa Story

I hated the upholstery of my sofa since the day it was delivered to me around 1992. I contemplated recovering it immediately, but I had chosen the pattern myself and so I felt I must live with it. 15-years on I decided it was an eyesore in my new home and the time to reupholster it had come.

These photos by Alamo Upholstery.

Other than the fabric I liked the sofa for its design, size and comfortable. This also seemed to be a good opportunity to find a good, sustainable fabric.

The frame is strong and in good shape.

As it turns out, it's very hard to find "green" fabrics. Reupholstery shops in the area had no idea, and weren't really interested in new products. As I learned, they also markup the fabrics they sell 100%, thus they have no incentive to have the customer bring in fabric. Here are some links to some fabric suppliers:

• Green Sage Directory
• DesignTex
• Furnature
• NearSea Naturals

I chose a "cradle to cradle," infinitely recyclable fabric from DesignTex.

I also highly recommend Alamo Custom Upholstery .

The final product.

Watershed

This fall I finally finished the water shed building that houses two, 1350-gallon tanks. Still needs work on the inside.

An early shot from some years ago.

The finished product.

Flood of 2007

In truth this was a great flood; by that I mean we had a great time. Many of us, not here for the '96 flood, now have bragging rights even though we had electricity and warm weather the whole time. And while we did load our cars when rumors of a crest of 2-feet above '96 circulated; and while we were locked in by two flooded bridges; and while we could only call locally, in the end the water reached 6" to a foot below '96 and no one was hurt.

Auerhaus had a great view of the proceedings and virtually ever neighbor dropped in to have a look. It was a busy, festive day.

Slide show best viewed in full screen mode, lower right button on player.