How not to reupholster furniture

We did once, successfully.  We covered an Ikea storage bench with really cute, retro, mint green fabric.  It looks great.  The Ikea sofa I've tried to reupholster, not so great.  The fabric's cute, tan with a retro print(to hide stains), but there are two very different, very big, factors in this job, M didn't help and the shape is much for complicated than a rectangular bench.  I know what I have to do, I have to take the sofa apart ( which is actually easy, it's also from Ikea), staple on the fabric with M's help, make sure that it can still be put back together, and ta-da!  I vow t fix this couch before my X-mas party this weekend.  And I will photograph/film the process, so I can make others feel the tediousness.