Custom couch cushions for the frame you already love

Most couches outlive their cushions

Most couches outlive their cushions. The frame stays square for decades; the seats sink, the backs slump, and the store that sold them changed its line long ago. A seam is a promise, and a good frame has earned a second set of them.

This part of the Atlas covers custom couch cushions: the loose seat and back cushions on indoor sofas, loveseats, settees and armchairs. Box seats, T-cushions, back pillows and bolster arms; seat only or seat and back; new foam, or new cushion covers over foam that is still sound. The workshop cuts them from your measurements, or copies the old ones from photos and dimensions. For the full routine on tired seats, start with replacement sofa cushions.

What the workshop doesn't do matters as much. It doesn't sew drape-over slipcovers for a whole sofa or re-upholster fixed backs or arms; if it is stapled to the frame, it belongs to an upholsterer. Floor sofas are their own product, under modular floor sofas.

Box seats, T-cushions, backs and bolster arms

A box seat is the plain one: a top, a bottom and a boxed band, usually piped. Three on a three-seat sofa, two on a loveseat, perhaps one long one on a settee. One long seat gives an unbroken line, but past about 79 in (2 m) a single piece gets hard to make, ship and lift.

A T-cushion widens in front of the arms so the seat reaches edge to edge. The black and sage replacements in the gallery sit on cream armchairs, their steps fitted snugly around the arms. Trace a T rather than guessing the notch; published replacement guides even letter its edges A to F. The T-cushion measuring Pattern has the tracing.

Backs come as separate rectangles made to the seat's length, or split into two or three along a long wall so they sit upright. The walnut bench in the gallery wears two short backs instead of one long one, and reads like a small two-seater for it. Round arm rolls are in bolster pillows, backs in backrest cushions.

One buyer in the US sent photos of an armchair with its seat and back measured at 22 x 22 in (56 x 56 cm) each. The workshop copied both in charcoal linen, and word came back that they fit perfectly.

What goes inside: firm seats, softer backs

Seats get 32 kg/m³ foam, about 2.0 lb/ft³: a high-resilience foam with a medium-firm feel that holds its shape for years. Each block is wrapped in polyester fiber wadding, which rounds the edges and fills the cover out. If you like to sink in a little, write 28-density foam in the personalization box; it sits noticeably plusher. Feather-wrapped foam isn't on the menu, so ask the workshop before planning anything down-filled.

Backs are usually softer: shredded foam, cut on the workshop's own machine, or fiber, in a separate inner case so the outer cover comes off for washing. A solid-foam back can be made too. Many buyers pair a firmer seat with a slimmer back, such as 4 in (10 cm) backs on an 8 in (20 cm) seat, which also lowers the quote.

New firm foam is cut a touch larger than its cover so it fills the fabric; don't trim it. More in fiber-wrapped foam, shredded foam or wedge backs, foam inserts and the foam firmness finder.

Plain cloth for the seat, pattern for the back

The seat takes the denim, the crumbs and the dog. The back gets looked at. The low oak platform sofa at the top of this page understands that: three plain charcoal seats, self-piped so each throws a neat shadow line, under a charcoal and cream hexagon jacquard back that carries the pattern at eye level.

For seats, choose a tight weave that forgives. Velvet takes daily wear better than people expect, linen-look fabrics are the quiet workhorse, and the performance and pet-friendly weaves suit busy households. Bouclé is soft, though its loops can snag where claws land. On the walnut loveseat in the gallery, an unpiped black and cream block weave wraps the edge unbroken, like a woven mat laid on the frame.

Order every cushion that sits side by side at once, so they share one dye batch and age together.