Custom cushions for Maryland rowhouses, bay houses and sailboats

A rowhouse city on a salty bay

Half of Baltimore's roughly 251,000 occupied homes are attached single-family houses. That one fact explains most custom cushions in Maryland: long, narrow rooms, a table pushed to the wall, and a bench built to meet it.

Baltimore averages 45 in (114 cm) of rain over 117 wet days, 32 days at 90°F (32°C) or above, and then 93 freezing nights and about 19 in (49 cm) of snow. The Chesapeake, the largest estuary in the United States, adds 11,684 miles of shoreline with its tributaries, and salt spray has sped corrosion as far as 5 to 10 miles inland. For Philadelphia's rows and the Jersey Shore, see our Mid-Atlantic reading.

Two rooms deep, with the nook at the back

Early Federal rowhouses were two stories high and two rooms deep; later daylight rowhouses ran wider and added front porches. Narrow houses turn the kitchen into a corridor, which is why banquette cushions in Baltimore are usually a straight run or a tight L.

My confession, dear: I once cut a handsome banquette cushion to the bench and never measured the table. Elbows at ears, all dinner long. A banquette cushion should sit 10 to 12 in (25 to 30 cm) below the tabletop, usually 2 to 3 in (5 to 7.5 cm) of firm foam, and back cushions take about 3 in of seat depth. The table-height guide has the chart; the seat height calculator does the sums.

What does your tabletop measure from the floor? Then browse banquette cushions or, for a corner, L-shaped cushions.

Marble steps, painted screens and the window seat behind them

Baltimore's white marble steps came mostly from Baltimore County quarries; Beaver Dam alone is estimated to have supplied 60% of them. Since 1913, painted window screens have given front rooms privacy and a breeze at once.

That front room, its tall window over the stoop, is where window seat cushions in Maryland earn their keep; see window seats. Brick, marble and a painted screen already make a busy palette, so I reach for navy ticking or a solid with one straight contrast welt, which draws the line the eye follows on a narrow seat.

Annapolis, the Eastern Shore and cushions that go to sea

Annapolis has long been known as America's Sailing Capital, and skipjacks still race at Deal Island over Labor Day weekend. On the Eastern Shore, the porch and the dock do the living; in the census division that includes Maryland, 74% of new homes started in 2024 had a porch.

Boat cushions for Annapolis sailors start with a traced template of the plywood base, as the V-berth guide shows. The workshop builds them in regular seat foam and water-repellent outdoor fabric, not quick-dry foam, so they suit a cabin or covered cockpit, or go below when weather comes in. Maryland outdoor cushions for porch benches take the same outdoor fabric; water-repellent vs waterproof explains the difference.