Different Cushion Fillings - Jordans Foam Cut to Size

Sofas are one of the biggest furniture investments we make in our home, we spend a lot of time socialising and relaxing in our lounges. That is why it is so important to choose wisely, to match our lifestyle, especially if you have a young children, you would not go with a white sofa.

A sofa says a lot about our household, from what colour, style, and patterns we go with. Your sofa might be looking shattered, weakened and needing a life especially with a family with small children, where they like to use the sofa as a trampling, climbing, and bouncing, the sofa tends to wear and tear over the years.

The sofa comprises of many main parts namely; the frame, foam, spring, cloth cover, and the supporting base. When your sofa wears out, the most common area is the foam and cover clothes, by reupholstering it can bring a new lease of life to you sofa. It is much more cost effective than purchasing a brand new sofa, where most people do not know the options that are available to them. This involves the process of replacing the sofa outer parts such as foams and clothes (and sometimes, springs) to bring a new life to the sofa and your room.

Reupholstering your old sofa has been confirmed to the best option, than looking to purchase a brand new sofa of which quality cannot be guaranteed as long-time sofa quality is much better than current ones. By helping you make the necessary change to your sofa all within your budget. You might have been asking yourself, "but I only purchase my sofa a year ago", You have to remember that your sofa gets a lot of you every day use and it's the focal point of your lounge, second being your TV. Another area we need to look at is the material and the types of filling of the sofa. This plays a significant role in the lifespan of your sofa.

Thinking of reupholstering your sofas or considering buying your first ever sofa, always consider the factors in selecting the best match for your home. Many people are concerned with the outward appearance of the sofa without taking into account the Sofa's filling. The filling is the aspect that will bring comfort to you later, paying too much attention to colour, size, and other outward appearance of the sofa may turn to be a significant error in the future. Sofa fillings have three main types, and they are discussed as follows:

Foam cushions sofas: Foam offers firmness support among all cushion padding which makes it ideal for supporting sitting. Many benefits make foam to stand out amongst other filling types; such as durability and less maintenance requirement. Foam has been found to give the most shaped structure and edge-surface finishing with firmness support to retain its shapes over the time.

There are different types of foam, and each of them is utilised based on the need and area of application. They are:
· High-density foam: This type of foam offers a firmness quality and has the feature of bouncing back quickly especially for people with restricted mobility to get up from the seat.
· Reflex foam: This type of foam is dense in nature with a supportive made from polyurethane. It provides rigid appearance and firm sitting.
· Soft foam: It is soft and rugged to retain its structural look.

Some other types of filling require plump which lead to turning-off the sofas often in the process refilling it which tells on the structural stability of the sofa frame. Fibre cushion sofas: These are strands of human-made hollow polyester which are fully pumped with air to giving a plump appearance. It provides much softer sit compared to foam as the fibres compress with exerted pressure through sitting. During sitting, due to pressure, the fibres compress, and the filled air gradually escapes; hence, there is a need to plump the fibre to return air into it. This will be a usual practice as fibre cushion sofas are put to use. The two most common fibre filling are:
· Blown fibre: In this type, strands are randomly blown into the cushions allowing many little pockets of air. This offers softness property to the cushions.
· Ball or Pocket fibre: This is the process of stitching little soft of fabric foam bags filled with a fluffy, spring, and light weight fibre to maintain body temperature and offer softness.

Feather cushions: This type of filling also requires continuous plumping to retain its shape. Just like fibre type, it provides softness but less rigid look compared to foam. However, both feather and fibre can be used together to give a better result as the only feather can cluster together. It is preferable by those who want to sink into the sofa as against sitting on it. Feather cushions are of different types namely; duck feather, down and duck feather, duck feather and down, and down.

In our next article we'll look at the pros and cons of the various cushion fillings.

Author - Deanna Gush.