Custom cushions for New Brunswick homes, cottages and coastal porches

Fog on 93 days, and snow that lingers into May

Saint John records fog on about 93 days a year, most of them in July and August, by Environment and Climate Change Canada's 1981 to 2010 normals. Cold Bay of Fundy air meets warmer air inland, and onshore winds carry the fog ashore. The tide at Saint John rises and falls about 28 ft (8 m).

Summer mornings there average above 90% relative humidity from July through September, and the city sees about one day a year above 86°F (30°C). Inland runs warmer and snowier: Moncton averages about 128 in (325 cm) of snow a year, Fredericton about 99 in (252 cm).

For custom cushions in New Brunswick, that means porch cushions rarely dry outdoors in a foggy week, and a mudroom takes a whole winter of snowmelt. Choose covers that zip off and wash. Then plan the porch season around frost: Moncton's first fall frost averages October 4, Fredericton's September 25.

Saint John brick, Fredericton window seats, Shediac cottages

After the Great Fire of 1877, Saint John rebuilt in brick and stone, and its uptown still shows Victorian, Romanesque Revival and Second Empire styles; Trinity Royal became the city's first heritage conservation area in 1982. Fredericton, along the Saint John River, runs from Victorian to modern. Old houses mean old window seats, and none of them are square.

Measure the width at the back wall and at the front edge, and the depth at left, middle and right, all from the face of the trim. Write every number on one drawing. For an angled bay, the bay window calculator turns wall lengths into a cuttable shape, and the bay window cushions hub covers the rest. I once cut a bay seat to the middle depth and spent an afternoon apologizing to both corners.

On the Acadian shore, where Acadians first settled Shediac in 1751, the town is known as the Lobster Capital of the World, and nearby Parlee Beach on the Northumberland Strait has the warmest salt water beaches north of Virginia. Cottage porch benches there want outdoor fabric: water-repellent and UV-resistant, not waterproof. Next door, Maine and Nova Scotia know the same fog, and custom cushions in Canada covers the other provinces.

The mudroom bench, where boots and snowmelt live

A mudroom bench cushion takes wet mittens, salty boots and whoever sits down to pull them off. A buyer in Canada asked for exactly that: a tufted entry bench cushion 64 x 17.7 in (162.4 x 45 cm) in mustard, in something durable that wasn't velvet. The workshop pointed to its soft-touch poly-cotton, a durable, easy-clean best seller, and said plainly that tufted covers can't come off; a zippered cover is possible without tufting. The buyer chose tufted.

I would have argued, dear, gently. In a mudroom I want the zipper, so the cover can go in the machine at 86°F (30°C) and dry on a rack. Mid-tones like mustard, olive or heathered taupe hide grime far better than white. More in mudroom bench cushions and tufted or plain.