I have a sofa and arm chair that I have owned for about 5 years now. They "had" large, overstuffed arms, but now the stuffing inside has flattened (and seemingly moved around a bit, too). When you rest your arm on the arms of this furniture, you can actually feel the wood inside. This furniture is from a reputable maker, and I am so disappointed. Is there any way I can add extra stuffing to these arms? I know nothing about upholstering furniture.
By Becky from NC
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The framing of furniture is made of wood. You could look in the yellow pages for people that do reupholstering. I had a sofa that needed to be reupholstered and I found a school that taught the subject and asked if a student could redo my sofa. It only cost me the price of the material.
Just maybe you can talk with the people you got it from & they will have it re done or give you a new chair,good luck.
Being an ex-reupholster yes your chair and couch can be repaired. They most likely used the wrong kind of batting or did not use a cover foam to hold it in place. If you know someone who would tackle it the job could be done but not easy unless they have experience. Call around and I am sure you will find someone who won't charge too much to fix it. I would have done both the chair and couch repairs in a couple of days for you, just make sure they understand your problem and that you don't want that to happen again. When manufactures make the arms so soft and comfy they don't take into account that they are going to be used. The arms take so much abuse they need to be better built. Good luck.
All the above are great ideas. However, if you can't find anyone, here is what I would do.
Find some nice pillows, the kind that are malleable, or some foam you can easily cut. Find some nice fabric that would go with your fabric on the couch, buying enough for the arms and maybe some for pillows, to keep the theme together.
Make some simple pillows that you can throw over the arms. You can sew in weights on both ends to keep it down. I have reupholstered a small recliner. It was simply a matter of taking the old pieces off and making new ones from them, and tacking, tacking, tacking them all back on. It was my first attempt and it turned out great.
If you feel confident, you can possibly remove the fabric from the arm, and replace the padding yourself. Whatever you choose to do, good luck!
Over the framing, use a fabric, then a stuffing, most furniture stuffing is a flat cotton. You can open older bed pillows and use that, cutting what you need. Place another fabric over the top and then your outer material over that.
Thanks so much for all the wonderful input! I do think I am going to have to tackle something myself. Very little money to work with right now, but some of these solutions sound workable. I have never tried my hand at upholstery, but may have to see just what I can do. Thanks for all the help!
Go deep on the inside arms and cut about big enough for your hand/arm keeping in mind the awkward angle you'll be dealing with so around 7 inches. Work your hand up to loosen fabric and situate the current padding. Do this with.small handfuls of stuffing. If you want a fluffier type arm then put foam sheeting over the wood then pillow stuffing.
Great, but I want a cheap do-it-yourself fix. Is there no simple way to add stuffing or pump up what's there?
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