Bean Bags

After watching Charlie Brown's Halloween, Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving, and Charlie Brown's Christmas numerous times and seeing the kids in the shows sitting on bean bag chairs, I thought we might want to give bean bag chairs a chance in our den.  The room isn't small, however with a fireplace on one wall, huge windows/doors on another wall, and the entrance to the kitchen on the third wall, there is really only one wall available.  I don't like the look of a huge line-up of furniture on one wall.  We had tried having a chair in addition to our couch and having it in the room sideways to the wall with the fireplace, but I hadn't loved that either.  With just our sofa, the four of us can fit on the couch (for now) but no one else, if we have visitors. 

So I thought maybe bean bag chairs could be the answer.  Of course I am on a do-it-myself kick, so I decided to look for instructions to make my own.  I found a tutorial from Michael Miller Fabrics here: http://www.michaelmillerfabrics.com/Blog/bean_bag_chair.pdf.  The picture made it look kind of small, but I thought it would work for the kids so I gave it a shot.  Fortunately I have a lot of fabric right now (much to Brian's chagrin) so I didn't have to go to the fabric store for the project.  All I needed was some velcro and bean bag filler (I found beans made from recycled material, which was great).  Here are the results:

Brian helped me fill the inside lining with the beans and I think we may have over-filled them.  I was hoping they would squish down some after they were sat on for a while.  I may be deluding myself, but I think they are, even though currently if you sit on them hard enough the velcro blows open.  Here is a picture of the kids on them watching Cars this morning:

They fit very nicely in the corner next to the couch when they aren't being used, so the room looks nice and spacious, the colord match the couch and woodwork nicely, and the kids love them.  I think they are going to do quite nicely!