Happy Martin Luther King Jr holiday, I hope everyone was able to enjoy their time off today! I wanted to share with you our most recent project which was a built-in window seat & cushion for Auggie’s big boy outdoor adventure room. The window seat was a custom fit to tailor the specific window nook in the room and I had the hardest time finding a window seat cushion that would A) fit the space exactly & B) not cost an insane amount of money. Naturally, I browsed “the Pinterest” as my husband calls it, and looked for fun ways to do this seat myself. Keep in mind, I have zero experience with a sewing machine, nor did I really want to learn at this moment in time. (It is on my to do list in the future though!) I came across a couple of blogs where they actually used memory/upholstery foam and placed some type of hard surface beneath it in order to staple the fabric to that for a sturdier hold. JoAnn Fabrics is great with their sales, I ended up coming across the extra dense 2″ memory foam that I wanted on mega sale…this stuff can be pricey so I would definitely wait until the next sale comes up. 2″ was perfect for what I was looking for but you may want a thicker cushion depending on what you need. We picked up a large piece of pegboard from Home Depot and Reid cut that and the foam to the appropriate size to custom fit our window seat space. We then picked up a heavy-duty furniture upholstery fabric from JoAnn’s, it was HGTV brand, 50% off! I am obsessed with the color/pattern/texture of the fabric, it’s even better than what I had imagined. That’s the bonus of doing it yourself, you get EXACTLY what you want!
Materials:
- Memory Foam, the exact one I used is found here
- 1/4″ Plywood (We used pegboard but I wouldn’t choose that again, the holes made it really hard for staples to stay in place)
- Fabric, I recommend an upholstery fabric, it’s thicker and better quality to last longer
- Staple gun, I just purchased this one from Home Depot, and it has killer reviews and is manual which I like, especially for indoor projects
- Some type of saw for cutting down wood to exact measurement, we used a jigsaw
- Good scissors or razor to cut down memory foam to exact measurement
- Heavy duty glue (we used gorilla glue)
Steps:
- Cut memory foam to appropriate size using heavy-duty scissors and/or a sharp razor
- Cut pegboard to appropriate size (should exactly line up with memory foam)
- Cut fabric to be able to wrap around edges enough to fold over and staple it to bottom side (you don’t need a lot of overhang here though since you won’t see the bottom)
- Having a second person around for the pulling and holding would be ideal
- Tightly pull the fabric over the end sides, apply glue to the pegboard then lay fabric down and hold for a few seconds
- Grab your staple gun and start applying staples through the fabric into the wood surface
- Repeat this process for other end side
- Fold over long sides and repeat glue and staple process while someone firmly pulls fabric (this may take a little messing with/cutting/tucking in order to make the fold-over crease look professional)
- It’s as simple as that…you’re done!
- Side note: I may end up adding some velcro to the bottom of the cushion, since it’s in a toddlers room, I know it will get a lot of rough play and it could be useful for keeping it in place…to all the fellow mamas out there!
I plan on sharing more photos of this nook, I am still on the hunt for the perfect pillows, drapes, and storage bins to complete this space. Thanks for reading all, have a fabulous week!