RV Cushion Cover DIY Replacement for Newbies | How-To Tutorial

I just finished recovering the cushions in our RV dinette and I thought I would share what I learned just in case you want to tackle that project too. I'll show you how to make a simple box cushion, talk about some odd shaped cushions, and if you make it all the way to the end I've got some final thoughts and tips before you get started. So grab a notebook and let's go. I started this project with the intention of making an instructional video on how to reupholster your RV cushions. So I started the project and then I started making some mistakes. It didn't work. And then I realized something. I'm not a professional seamstress and yeah. But I did just go through the process and turned this into this. So I think there's definitely something of value that I can share. I guess we'll just start. For this project you'll need cushions to cover of course, and fabric, a zipper for each cushion, thread matching the color of your fabric, cutting tools such as a rotary cutter or scissors, pins, fabric pencil, chalk, or marker, an iron, soft measuring tape, a ruler, I used my cutting mat, and a sewing machine with your regular foot and a zipper foot. Start by measuring each cushion foam. You need to measure the length, width, and thickness of each one and don't forget to write them down. Now calculate the circumference by adding up the measurement of all four sides. A quick way to do this is by multiplying the length times two, multiplying the width times two, and adding those two figures together. Each of these box cushions will be made using four pieces of fabric. You'll be cutting one front, one back, these will have the same dimensions, one boxing piece, one zipper casing. Each piece also needs to have a seam allowance added in so that the finished product will be the right size. For this project I used a half inch seam allowance. Here's how to do that. For the front and back pieces, we'll add one inch to both the length and the width. For example, if your cushion form has a length of 10 inches and a width of 5 inches, you'll cut a piece of fabric that is 11 inches by 6 inches. To calculate the dimensions of the zipper casing, add four inches to the length of the cushion and three inches to the thickness. You might be wondering why we're adding more than just one inch here and that's because we'll be making a hidden zipper and we also want it to extend a bit past the corners so that it will be easier to get the cushion form into it once it's made. The zipper you buy will also need to be this newly calculated length. The length of the boxing piece is calculated by adding two inches to the circumference and then subtracting the length of the zipper casing you just calculated. The width of this piece is worked out by adding one inch to the thickness measurement. I found it really helpful to draw out the pieces of each cushion on separate pieces of paper. Something else you might be wondering is how to know how much fabric to get and that is easy with an online fabric calculator which I will link to in the description to the one that I used. This let me calculate how much I needed. Now that you have the measurements of each piece to cut out you just have to plot that out on the wrong side of the fabric and cut out each piece. Once the pieces to your cushion cover are ready it's time to assemble. So we're going to start by taking the zipper casing and we're going to cut this in half to make room for the zipper. I find it easiest to iron this in half and then open it back up and just cut along the fold line. Next you want to take each of those zipper casing pieces, put it right side down on your ironing board and fold over and press one inch from the long edge and you're going to do that the whole length. Now it's time to put in the zipper. So you want your two folded edges meeting and there are likely a couple of different ways that you can put in zippers. I just found this to be the easiest for me. So I meet these two edges together kind of pinned all the way along the edge and so this will give us a nice hidden zipper. Once you have it all pinned in now you can stitch it in. Then you want to take your boxing piece and lay that matching the ends with the zipper casing right sides together. Make sure it's not twisted anywhere and pin those in place. Now you can stitch both of those together and now you can see we have one giant blue fabric. I'm going to press this open so that I get a nice finished looking seam. I've got one of the pieces and I've put it face up and in order to make sure that you have this on correctly, find the middle of your zipper casing and match the middle of that up with the middle of your front piece. Right sides together and now just line up the edges all the way around and pin your edge. Now that you have it all pinned and it all measures up, you can stitch around that pinned edge. Once you have stitched the front piece on, remove the pins and press open the seams. Now repeat the same process using the back side of the cushion. One tip is to have a portion of the zipper open so that once it is stitched you'll be able to get your hand in there to turn it right side out. And there you have it, a box cushion. Right now I've decided to start working on these monstrosity corner cushions that are obviously not just a box. As you can see they're a weird shape and so this one has been a little bit trickier. So far I have spent about three or four hours just measuring and cutting out the pieces for one of the two cushions like this. The reason why this one is so much tougher is because of this corner. It's curved and so I have to make sure that my cuts are at the right angle. So that's been a little bit tricky. I've measured multiple times so hopefully knock on wood it'll turn out. So I'm just to the point now where I'm going to start assembling that and yeah so we'll keep on going. Okay the moment has come to see if all of my measuring and careful planning has worked. It's not bad but there's like three inches. This is not. It's kind of puffing out a little bit. I guess my careful measuring didn't work. That sucks. Okay a new day and a renewed sense of energy. Here's what I figured out went wrong. While I was ripping out the seam of the cushion yesterday I realized I made two critical mistakes. The first being that I accounted for seam allowance in some of my pieces but not all of my pieces. And the second mistake I made was with regards to the curve in the cushion. And in my attempts to economize the fabric as much as I could so that I get the most out of it I used that curve to make my subsequent two pieces to go inward. So when I did that that meant the inside edge was a little bit smaller and then the next piece a little bit smaller again. Which is why the cushion was pulling in and it wouldn't fit. So I have corrected those mistakes a total of 24 hours working on just these two but I learned a lot in the process. Use the original cover as a guide for figuring out how many pieces and the shapes of those pieces that you're going to need. For curves it's easiest to use the cushion foam as your guide. And pay attention to how asymmetrical shapes need to be oriented in order to have the right side of the fabric facing out on the finished product. Assembly was similar to the box cushions in that I started with making the boxing loop and then attached it to the front and back pieces. If I can do it you can do it. Really the moral of the story is stay meticulously organized and measure very carefully. In fact maybe measure three or four times. I really hope you found this video helpful. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have in the comments below or via email contact at homeroam.com And if you've recovered your RV cushions we'd love to hear from you and see the results. And if you like this video please be sure to give us a like subscribe and hit that notification bell. It really helps us out. Thank you very much. And in the meantime keep on living the life you imagined. I really hope you found this video helpful um oops cranky. And in the meantime no. Epic fail.