Custom cushions for Romanian apartments, mountain houses and village homes

Thirty degrees in July, frost in the foothills

Romania asks a cushion to live at both ends of the thermometer. At Bucharest's Băneasa station the 1991–2020 normals give July days of 86.7°F (30.4°C), January nights of 23.0°F (−5.0°C), and about 2,126 hours of sun a year, 293 of them in July.

Climb and the numbers turn over. The National Meteorological Administration puts the January average at 25 to 32°F (−4 to 0°C) on the plains, 21 to 25°F (−6 to −4°C) in the Carpathian foothills and below 14°F (−10°C) above 5,900 ft (1,800 m). The national record, 111.7°F (44.3°C), came at Calafat in July 2007.

Fifty-some years of watching weather work on cloth tell me this: - Summer sun fades. A south-facing balcony in July takes more color out of an indoor fabric than a whole winter will. - Cold doesn't hurt foam; damp does. Water that gets in, freezes, thaws and never dries is what ruins a cushion. - Stove heat is dry heat. Keep cushions back from stoves and radiators, and brush them often.

The fire room, the porch and the bench along the wall

The old Romanian village house was built around its stove. The room where the family lived was often called the cameră a focului, the fire room, because the stove stood there; a passage room, the tindă, a clean room for guests and a porch, the prispă, made up the rest. Oak and fir were the main timbers.

Along the walls of the fire room ran the laviță, the long wooden bench, and over it went the weaving. Romania's wall carpets served as decoration and insulation and went into a bride's dowry; UNESCO listed the craft in 2016. A cushion for that bench should be built the way those carpets were: plain, strong and meant for every day. A seam is a promise.

In town the seat moves. Most of Bucharest lives in apartment blocks, the blocuri, and the balcony changes with the season. Glazed in, it's a sunroom, and indoor fabric will do if you turn it against the July sun. Open, it's outdoors, and it wants outdoor fabric and a dry winter indoors. Next door, the Hungary and Bulgaria pages cover their own flats and balconies.

Up in the Carpathians the cabin bench is never far from the stove, and there I get strict. The workshop's standard foam has no added flame retardants and its standard fabrics have no fire-retardant treatment. Find the clearance to combustibles on the stove's plate or in its manual, and keep cushions and throws outside it.

Sitting low on a woven rug

Floor cushions suit a Romanian room better than folks expect, because the rug is already down. A tufted floor cushion comes 4 in (10 cm) thick as standard, and 3, 5, 6 or 8 in (8, 13, 15 or 20 cm) on request; thicker sits higher and costs more.

Put it where the family actually sits: by the window, under the lamp, at the low table. Not by the stove. I'd rather you moved it across the room tonight, my friend, than wrote to me about it in February.

Tufted cushions are sewn right through, so they don't unzip; wipe them with a damp cloth and mild soap. For a cover that comes off, ask for a plain cushion instead, and see the floor cushion thickness Pattern for heights.

Red, white and the colors of a wall carpet

Romanian textiles have a strong hand. The embroidered blouse, the ie, with its band of shoulder stitching called the altiță, joined UNESCO's list in 2022; it's sewn on white flax, cotton or hemp, in palettes from quiet to bright.

A cushion shouldn't try to copy that. It should let it lead. If a woven carpet hangs over the bench, take one quiet color out of it, a madder red, a walnut brown, the cream of the ground, and make the cushion plain in that, with piping a shade darker. If the room is plain, let the cushion carry the pattern: a woven jacquard, or red-and-white ticking like the bench in our photo. Check it in daylight beside the carpet. What's hanging on the wall above your bench?