For a very long time, furniture has been manufactured to accommodate style, convenience, comfort and cost. Nothing has really changed over time except that the price continues to rise. These are the same criteria you need to consider when purchasing new furniture with cushions or replacement cushions. In particular, deep seating cushions can be quite expensive and you want to make the right choice.
We have created a two part blog series to better explain deep seating furniture and deep seating cushions. These two parts will be broke down into:
- Deep Seating Furniture
- Deep Seating Cushions (Materials, Cost, Process)
What is Deep Seating Furniture?
Deep seating furniture is designed and built for elegance and comfort. The frames are designed to hold thick luxurious seat and back cushions. Seating frames can be made from any type of material such as rattan, wicker and rattan, metal, resin or wood. These units usually have a suspension frame where the seat cushions sit that is separate from the main furniture frame. Suspension frames are used to enhance the comfort and reaction of the seat cushion. The depth of the suspension frame will typically be between 23 to 29 inches deep as compared to 18 or 19 inch standard seating furniture depth that does not use seat and back cushions together.
Suspension Seating Frame
Quality deep seating furniture uses strapped suspension frames that the cushions sit on when others use hard slats. Strapped frames provide a much more desirable soft feeling on your bottom rather than the hard slats that were used years ago. Although, if you make the cushions thick enough, sometimes you can overcome the hardness of slats or solid surface. Some unique deep seating wicker furniture have fully woven seat frames.
Furniture Uses for Replaceable Cushion Sets
Replaceable deep seating cushions are used in all types of furniture seating. Depending on the piece, it’s most likely that you will find a cushion set for each seating position. For example, a single chair will use one seat and back cushion. A settee will use two sets, one set for each the left and right side. A sofa will use three sets. A chaise lounge will have a long seat cushion and a back cushion. It’s very uncommon today to find deep seating cushion sets for a love seat or sofa that have a one piece seat and back cushion.
This was common many years ago, but experience has proved that one seat and one back cushion is the way to go with deep seating furniture, although, it may interfere with the overall style of some designer furniture. When long seat cushions are used for settees and sofas, they are typically on fabric covered frame furniture and they are sewn down to the the frame so they won’t move when someone sits on one end. Otherwise, they will bend when someone sits on them and they will bend up on the opposite side.
Wicker and Rattan Furniture Cushion Sets
Deep seat rattan cushions usually have rectangular seat foam cushions with squared off corners. Wicker typically has rounded-off back corners. These seat cushions can be boxed or have waterfall edged fronts. They will always have a zipper so that the covers can be removed for cleaning or to replace the foam. The back cushions are typically pillow style meaning they are poly filled cushions with or without tufting. The shape of the back cushions generally will take on the shape of the furniture back, either rectangular with square corners or with rounded corners.
If the back cushions are not tufted, they can either have a zippered removable cover with an inner casing or they can be sewn shut to save a little money. If they are tufted, which means the back and the front panels are sewn together along the outer seams and at each sewn circle tuft, then the covers are not removable and you can’t put inner casings or a zipper in.
In both the seat and back cushion, it is generally desirable to have double piping for boxed cushions or single piping for the waterfall type.
Deep Seating Furniture Cushions Part 2
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