Recovering my caravan sofas ...all 12 of them. Tell me I can do this please!

[Dowser]

They are a faded not very attractive shade of yellow. I hate them. I want grey with teal or duck egg blue.
On Friday I found some lovely fabric at £12 per metre. Everything I've seen started t about £18 and the stuff I liked started at £24 and went upover.

So we measured the cushions which are in good condition. I've just rang the shop to order the fabric. The assistant was a bit sniffy when she realised we are doing it ourselves but they had a £280 order from us.

I'm sure it is a skilled job but I'd like to think we could do this. I'm not stitching them. We plan to cover the cushions with the fabric and then either stick them down with carpet glue and then stitch them with a sail needle for extra stability. We might even put a plywood backing on the back of the cushion and staple the fabric to that I don't know.
We have two cushions we aren't using..we are going to practice on those.

I can sew. I've done some diy jobs but I've never tackled this before.
Bit of hand holding needed.
I'm going to watch YouTube videos till I'm bog eyed.🙄

Good luck. I remember your previous thread about the dreaded sofas.
Could you make a slip cover to fit the whole sofa?

The easiest thing would be to get plywood, put padding on top then put fabric over that. Glue it to the underside of the plywood and then staple gun for good measure. Just make sure that hat you have lots of extra fabric.

Thanks scurry and ttbb. I don't want to do any sewing. We thought plywood and stapling.
Have you tried this?
Would you do it on the backrest ones
(Personally I can't see why not)
Just can't get over sniffy woman's attitude. Surely selling £280 of fabric is better than people turning away when £1500-£2000 is too much.

I'd be helping people as much as possible as then they'd be likely to recommend me to others and then I'd get the big jod
In fact I'd be doing some classes as well and sell buttons, tools for the job etc
Better to have someone spend a £1 than nothing.

By my reckoning we have 3 extra metres of fabric... we shall see .
I'll buy some new scissors, get some glue to glue fabric before we cut so it doesn't gray
Plenty of gin lol

Fray

Why don't you want to sew them? It seems easiest. I assume they're basically long pieces of foam covered in fabric.

Sewing would give you a better long term finish and would be cheapest. I think the hacks/compromises (cutting plyboard, experimenting with glue, not being able to reverse them if stained/wet, not being able to machine wash them ever) may end up costing you time in the long run. If you're not going to sew, I think I'd favour the plywood.

I've had good results with PU "leather" and gaffer tape. It does tend to go a bit melty over time though and the adhesive "leaks" out a bit from round the tape. It's on the bottom of the cushion so I'm not bothered. Glue would be a similar idea, but trickier I think. You want a little tension in the fabric for a nice finish, and that tension would tend to pull on the glue. Hand stitching would get round that but you need smallish stitches to get even tension, and it then becomes a big job. Also think about the slight extra weight & awkwardness of moving ply backed cushions, if you use the under-seat storage regularly. Would little fingers get trapped between ply layer and compartment lid?

Good points singing.
Well we had a stroke of good luck yesterday with our taxi driver.
He'd worked at an upholstery firm in his youth. Told him what we intended to do and he also suggested ply wood.
He also gave us the name of a firm that would cut it for us.
Nothing is going to happen for three weeks as yesterday we arrived on the island of fernando ❤️

I take your point about using the storage. I don't think we should need it apart from extra bedding and that would only be if my children and their families use it.
There's loads of storage. Two big wardrobes in main bedroom. A chest of drawers and a wall cabinet in second bedroom with under bed storage.
Plenty of kitchen storage and a big unit in lounge.
There's only the two of us. But then we've managed to fill a four bedroomed house no problem.
There's almost £300 worth of upholstery fabric in our closet at home ( plus two sofa cushions to practice on...) I think we can do this.
We've got to do this!
Plan A wash and dry each sofa cushion separately before putting it back on cushion as they are in good condition with wadding intact. Washed one and that is fine. I like the idea of recovering something that's clean.
Get plywood cut.
Buy new scissors. Fabric glue to seal fabric where we will make cuts.
Buy new buttons...and button hook?
Check old staple gun...and probably buy new one.😂

It's probably going to cost about £500. Leather sofas were almost £1000 that I cancelled.

The fabric I've got is really strong and really hard wearing. It's an all over silver grey, metallic looking with a fleck of green blue. I think it will take some punishment.
Neither of us smoke and the caravan won't be rented out.
Hopefully all should be well.