Fatsak Surgery

Geesh I hope that title doesn't bring in a bunch pervs.

Obviously we are living on a very very tight budget right now. Which means we aren't just replacing things -- we are doing our best to fix them or reuse, etc.  You know, the way we really should all be living anyways?  Although I was once a major pro at this, I'm a little rusty right now.

So this is the Fatsak.  It has been part of our family for about 5 years.  The only reason we own it is because when we bought our new living room furniture we were just under what we needed to get free financing for 18 months.  So we threw this in to get to that amount. And yes we paid it off in less than the 18 months so it was a free loan.

The Fatsak has become an essential part of our living room ever since. And many people have enjoyed it (and some even went out and bought their own.). It is extremely comfortable.

One of the things that makes it so comfortable is the type of stuffing inside.  It is fibers instead of Styrofoam or some of the other synthetics you see in most beanbags. So its a little more solid yet it still forms to your body and hugs you.

Anyways, this last week one of the dogs had an accident on the Fatsak.  And we aren't sure exactly what kind (it was obviously not poo). Whether it was retch or wet didn't even actually matter at this point. It had to be deep cleaned.  And that was the dilemma.  The Fatsak is larger than the washer and we didn't know how much penetration there was into the stuffing and lets face it, it was clean the whole thing or throw it out.

And throwing out a $200 piece of furniture that just needs to be cleaned is just not in me.  And taking it in to be cleaned somewhere is just not in the checkbook.  And a surface job was not going to get it for this.

So we brainstormed.

And this was my super frugal answer to this problem:

We started pulling the stuffing out of the cover and stuffing it into pillowcases.  As you can see, Cinder is very upset about this. She has claimed it as her bed.

And we used every pillowcase in the house and it wasn't near enough. In this case you can see a more sold batting also.  Whenever I have leftover batting from quilting I stuff it in the Fatsak to keep it...well, fat.

Then I ran a quick (and sloppy) seam across the opening to keep all the stuffing in.  I suppose I could have safety pinned them all close but that was too time consuming for a lazy person.

We washed the cover in the washing machine -- micro suede rocks!! Since it is 5 years old we had a few seams that were loose and pulled looking.  This is a hazard for a big comfy pillow looking thing that just BEGS to be jumped on.  Ask any person under the age of 20 that enters my house.  Anyways, I went ahead and reinforced all the seams on the Fatsak since I had it empty. Whether they needed it or not.

And we ran OVER 20 pillowcases through the washer and dryer.  It was an all day process, so if you have more money than time take it somewhere to be done.  Personally, I can find a day out of my life to save the money. This wasn't hard, just time consuming.

And then we ripped the seams out of the top of the pillowcases and stuffed all the stuffing back inside the Fatsak.  And he is huge now after all the dryer time.

And all is well again in Cinders world.  And all the rest of us have been enjoying it also. When we can get the dog off of it.  And sometimes even when we can't.

And the whole point of this boring post is just to  point out that we all normally have the answer somewhere in our homes to fix problems that need to be handled with no or little money.  And it has reawakened in me the thought processes of how to do with what you have.

And right now I need that!