Jay Nelson's Tree House

We're very excited to see this article in the SF Chronicle about Jay Nelson's latest tree house.  Not only is the house original and cool, we got to contribute to it as well by making the cushion inserts for the benches.  The covers were expertly made by Catlin Weatherill, who tailored all the unique angles that were part of Jay's design.  We would love to hang out in this tree house and listen to Peter Rabbit on the phonograph all day.

Little House - Long Cushions

The Metropolitan Museum of Art regularly posts short audio/visual tours from their collection and this one on Frank Lloyd Wright's living room of the Little House features a few views of a pair of wonderfully long, long window seats bookended by perfectly proportioned bolsters.

These pictures make a strong case for making one long cushion for a window or bench seat instead of breaking the space up with 2 or 3 (or more!) cushions.  

It's graphically bold and comes with the added benefit of allowing the user to lie anywhere they want without encountering a break from one cushion to the next. 

An interesting choice was made to have the cushions come up short in width to allow the bolster to rest inside the space between the cushion and the wall.  

Fun Window Seat with Pillows by Ida Lauren Designs

The covers for this beautiful window seat were sewn by Lauren of Ida Lauren Designs.  Cushion Works made the cushion and pillow forms that are inside of the covers.

Construction Notes:  

The pillow covers have a strong graphic pattern and were cut straight to allow for Lauren's great pattern matching at the seams.  

The seat cushion's thickness was sized to fit snugly underneath the window trims.  We used a firm foam core with a polyester wrap on top and bottom which makes the cushion reversible.

The Making of a Bench Cushion

This bench cushion has a long cut out in the middle.  We first mark the foam and then cut with the foam saw.

 All foam is cut with perfectly flat sides.  It is difficult to get a cover to be tight on a flat surface, so we wrap the foam with either a polyester or a down/feather envelope to help tighten the top and bottom panels of the cover.  For this cushion we are gluing the bonded polyester to the foam.

The polyester is cut to the same shape as the foam.  On this cushion, it sits on the  top and bottom of the foam core only.  We left the edges free of polyester because we want the cover to have a flat front. 

The foam in these photos is 2 1/2" thick and will be covered with a cover that has a finished boxing panel of 2 1/2" too.  The edges of the foam will hold the piping on the cover straight while the polyester will push up against the top and bottom panels, creating a crown and making the cover look tight and fit.

Polka Dotted Comfort

For this window seat cushion we used a firm High Resiliency foam for support and a sturdy Dacron 91 wrap to provide fullness against years of use. The brilliantly polka-dotted cover was expertly fabricated by Riitta Herwitz Design Support (riitta@riittaherwitz.com).