Venturing into upholstery by way of ripping apart an old couch

So, my newest project is figuring out the kinks in this couch that we recently bought. We’ll be hosting a microchurch here at BrightHaven, so we thought extra seating would be nice. Plus, I’ve had my eye on this lovely couch for several months now (at a local thrift store, watching the price drop steadily). When it finally hit an acceptable price for us, we snapped it up! Plus, it goes so well with our other couch that it was a perfect fit for our home.

Sure, I realize that this new project requires more effort than merely blogging about it. That’s where you, my lovely readers, tag surfers, friends and craftspeople come in.

I’m not really sure what I’m doing.

Okay, I don’t know what I’m doing at all. What I do know is that the couch troubles me a bit. So, I took apart one of the cushions to see if I could do anything about it. Seems the cushions are supplied with nice stainless steel springs (possibly something new as I took the seam apart where I could find it had already been taken apart??) Basically, these springs had compressed to give the cushion just a totally weird look and feel. The back of the seat was fairly elevated, meaning that if you sat, the incline tried to force the body downwards.

fig a: springs removed from cushion

fig b: tag inside cushion

Have I made it sound sufficiently awful?

Just wait, it gets worse. I mean…better. I mean…there’s more…

Not certain that the springs were my problem, I took a good long look at the actual horizontal body of the couch and decided some work there was in order as well. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a seam that had already been removed…so I made a new hole. Yes, I did. Don’t you know this is how geniuses get their start? Come on…

Once the hole was large enough to accommodate my arm, I began to feel around inside. Found some burlap, cotton stuffing, more upholstery cloth, springs and…grass? I found grass inside my couch? Does anyone know enough about early 20th century furniture construction to tell me the meaning of this?

fig. c: grass in the couch??

What I’ve done now i shift around the stuffing and repositioned some type of burlap rope sort of thing so that the cushions will have better support. I’m about to go ahead and restitch everything. Does anyone have any further advice for me? I’m certainly willing to take it all apart again. Nothing ventured, nothing gained I say.

By the way, if you can help us date this couch, that would be super awesome as well.

Thanks!