Restaurant Booth Bench Reupholstered

The above photo shows how this Restaurant bench looked before I decided to made it new. It also had several of the springs popping out underneath and when sitting on it, you could literally feel them moving around and popping out of place.

This is a faux leather material and over time it starts to crack. So it looks very ugly and it was definitely time to replace it.

Staple Remover

Pair of Pliers (to help with the tough nails/staples)

Scissors

Upholstery Staples (about 1/2 inch or so)

Staple gun. (I have a pneumatic one, but a hand held one can be used)

Spray Glue

Foam

Twine (or some sort of string)

The new Fabric

This started with me removing all staples from the old fabric. I have done this before on other projects and have seen where some people just like to take a knife the fabric just above the staples and then just pull off the fabric leaving the staples there. While this may seem easier and they will not necessarily be seen at all, it makes me feel better to remove them all.
Additionally, I need the fabric to measure out later and since I am new at this, I would just like to trace it out onto the new fabric rather than guess how much I cut off.

One of the problems with these cushions was you could feel the springs coming through the bottom and the foam itself had this delapidated feeling to it.

In the picture you can see that these have the zig-zag type springs. I have never worked with these before, so I had to look it up on YouTube. Once I fixed the springs so all were back in place, I tied them together with twine so they would not pull out of place again.

Then I took 1 inch foam that was the size of the original foam and just placed it on top of the old one. I did not remove the old foam as the foam I was putting on was not firm enough to hold a person fully, but I wanted to add more cushion to the bench itself.

I spray glued the two cushions together to prevent one from sliding off the other one and then I stapled it on the front.

First thing is to take those pieces I took off in the beginning and traced out the new fabric. As the fabric was not fully symmetrical, I made a point to mark the front of the cushion so that when I sew them together I do not make a mistake.

I then sewed the center piece to the two sides. This turned out great and I even did a top stitch to make sure this was strong enough. These cushions get a lot of use, so I wanted to make sure they were strong.

Unfortunately I did not get photos of me actually doing the sewing. But you can see the result in the next photos.

Now came the actual test. As this is quite a large seat I was crossing my fingers that I did not make a mistake on the sizes or on the sewing as I did not want to waste the material I bought.

As you can see, this was a great fit and I was able to put it on nice and snug. Maybe a little too snug or just right, but the hardest part of this was stapling the fabric on. I had to use all my strength to pull the fabric down in the front and staple it on. I then stapled the back (which was a little easier as it is not visible at all. Then I stapled the side panels on.

As you can see from the photos, this turned out great and the product was something that could be put back in the restaurant and used immediately.

Next was to fix the springs underneath the cushion as you could feel some of them when you sat on the cushion. In the pictures you can see that some of the zig-zag springs have come loose and that is where you feel it. They are held in place by twine or string, to keep them from just slipping off the bracket at each end. So I reattached them to the bracket and then replaced the broken string holding them all together.

So, this was the completion of the cushion and I returned it to the Restaurant. It worked perfectly.