I bought two Marshall cushions 18"x18" & one 18"x21" and had them shipped to my upholsterer to be installed in our newly refinished and upholstered couch circa 1920. I was told that the cushions were to be covered in at least two inches of cotton and NO foam. That made sense because the old spring cushion was wrapped in cotton. I told my upholsterer to use cotton only and NO foam. My experience with foam is that it fails very quickly where cotton will hold together for many decades.
The finished couch looked fantastic and the cushions felt a bit soft but comfortable. Within one month the cushions were collapsing and the fabric wrinkling. As time went by the cushions began to look like they had been run over by a Mac truck. It was then time to look inside the new cushion. Much to my surprise I found that the upholsterer had built a foam outer body for the sides with just a thin layer of cotton on the top and bottom of the Mashall unit and then a thin foam top and bottom piece glued to the outer body. What was even worse was that the Marshall units were NOT secured to each other on all four sides, just two sides. This caused the springs to fold into the adjacent spring which in turn degraded the cushion even further. What a waste of time and money.
Since I still had the original springs from the old cushions we decided to build them the way they were intended 100 years ago. My wife sewed individual pockets for each spring which held the compressed spring at 3.5". I then stitched each spring and pocket to the adjacent springs using heavy twine on all four sides. The finish cushion unit was then covered in three layers of fresh cotton, then covered with Dacron and lastly covered in ticking.
The cushions look great, plump and firm like they used to be. read more
