Sofa/Dinette Upholstery

When we ditched the folding bed under the sofa and opened up all the storage areas, we went with two separate lockers behind and two under. This gave us a lot of  usable space but it wasn't easily accessible with the original six cushion (three back and three seat) arrangement. 

Here is the original six cushion arrangement on the sofa. Note how the back cushions sit low due to the removal of the folding bed.

To create improved locker access  behind and under the sofa, we built two doors in the back and two in the bottom. It was a huge improvement to the storage areas but, to open any one of the four new locker doors, we now had to remove at least two of the cushions. 

We wanted easier and simpler locker access so, as the original cushions were old and scruffy (and very BLUE!), we thought we could solve two problems with one upgrade. Get new upholstery and reduce the number of cushions to four. Here is the new sofa set-up. One cushion Velcro'd to each locker door. All four cushions are interchangeable to spread the wear.  Also, with two seat cushions left in place and two back cushions laid on the sole in front of the sofa, two full length berths are again available....without the weight and obstruction of the clunky folding bed. 

Once we saw a solution to the sofa issue we took the same idea to the dinette. The two bench cushions were worn and badly compressed in the corner where they met. Also, the three back cushions were removable inserts combined  with upholstered plywood supports, which restricted access to the storage areas behind. We tore it all out and redesigned both seat and back cushions.

Here is the new dinette arrangement. The two original LH and RH  bench cushions are replaced by two identical, interchangeable cushions, again to spread the wear. The corner seat has its own 'pie slice' shaped cushion. If corner compression becomes a problem in the future we only have one, small and relatively inexpensive piece to replace.     

The position of the mast casing meant that the back cushions could not be interchangeable but, because the backers were eliminated, and each cushion can be completely removed, access is greatly improved. 

Upholstery Upgrade

Up to this point in our adventure all of Circe's main cabin upholstery, dinette and settee, was the factory original, 1982 vintage. The actual mid-blue cover material appeared to be automotive style velour and had held up quite well, considering its age, but the foam bases hadn't fared so well! In particular the dinette was really bad. The bench cushions were beat down to the point where there was zero resilience in them, particularly in the corner, and the back cushions were shapeless and had gaps all around. 30 years of use and abuse had taken their toll. 

The dinette as it was. Note the gaps around the back cushions and the squashed seat cushions in the corner. The two seat cushions had a mitre corner design so they couldn't be swapped to even out the wear on them.....not good.

The settee was in better shape, although most of the buttons in the seat cushions had disappeared over the years. A bigger problem with it was there were so many cushions, six of 'em....three backs and three seats, plus they were all dead flat, no shape at all. In the original design, when the settee was also a fold away double berth and there were four small small access points to the storage in the settee back, having all those cushions made sense. They had to be small for easy access to the various storage points and they had to be flat because they also doubled as the mattress for the berth. Another issue with the flat cushions was that they weren't very comfortable in 'settee mode'. After we removed the fold away berth, and modified and consolidated the settee storage areas, we had two large hatches in the settee back and two in the base, so we always had to remove at least four cushions to open any of them.....a pain. 

The settee as it was. Note the three seat back cushions appear short due to the removal of the fold away berth.

We briefly considered trying to save the dinette seat covers by cutting new foam bases for them and replacing the seat backs. That way we would only have to re-upholster the settee to a four cushion design with a contrasting fabric. That route would have been less expensive than complete re-upholstery of both dinette and settee but, in the end, would have left us with basically unchanged interior and we wanted a fresh look. 

So, in the end, we bit the bullet and went the whole hog.....complete re-upholstery of both the settee and dinette plus some new throw pillows.We took bids on the job and finally settled on North Beach Marine Canvas in San Francisco. For the cushions we chose a faux leather material that closely matched the headliner, which is still in good shape, and complimented them with a geometric pattern in a rust red colour for the pillows.....looks quite civilised, really helps brighten the main cabin and perhaps most importantly, its all very comfortable!.

Here is the new look dinette. We redesigned the seats into three pieces having a small triangular corner cushion and two interchangeable side cushions so we can spread the wear.

The new, four cushion settee with matching bolster pillows.

Truth be told the whole job was quite a chunk of change, more than we had budgeted, but, hey.....it's our home right?