How To Replace A Leather Sofa Cushion

Oops! The dogs destroyed one of your leather sofa cushions while you were away, though they're not admitting it. A minor tear or missing filler is an easy-enough DIY project, but a cushion so badly damaged that you almost can't identify it means a replacement is in order. While you probably won't find a spare matching cushion from the original furniture manufacturer or retailer, an upholstery repair company makes replacement cushions to match your sofa's leather. If the leather is in good shape but it's the inside of the cushion that needs to be replaced, many of these same furniture repair companies sell replacement cushion foam shaped to your specifications.

Perhaps the leather sofa cushion no longer offers ample support, or maybe it was never firm enough for your liking. In many cases, this is an easy fix by simply replacing the foam cushion inside the leather casing. Look for a zipper somewhere on the leather cushion; it may be hidden on the back or bottom of the cushion. Even if the cushion seems stitched or otherwise secured to the sofa frame, there's a chance it has a zipper, or it may be accessible by removing a few staples from the sofa frame.

Open the cushion and carefully pull out the foam inside the leather casing. Measure it and purchase replacement foam in the same size. If the cushion isn't a standard shape, make a template by tracing it on a large sheet of kraft paper. Custom cushion retailers offer their own specific instructions on how to order foam that fits your specific leather cushion. If the foam seems compressed due to age, you may want to consult the cushion retailer in case a thicker slab of foam is needed.

As with mattresses, foam for sofa cushions comes in assorted levels of firmness, so choose a firmness that seems appropriate for the sofa. If you aren't sure, opting for firmer rather than softer is a good choice since cushions eventually wear out a bit over time. If your sofa has more than one cushion, you may want to replace the foam in all of the cushions at once so they have the same firmness.

If a cushion is missing or destroyed, replacing the cushion makes the sofa useful once again. In this case, a leather furniture repair company is a great option. If there's a furniture repair shop nearby, the specialists may even make sofa repairs on-site or offer pickup, which comes in handy if you can't remove the cushion from the frame.

If the entire cushion — leather and all — needs to be replaced, it may not exactly match the rest of the sofa. One way to minimize the difference is to re-cover the rest of the cushions at the same time; this way, one cover isn't darker or lighter than the rest. Even if the cushions end up a slightly different shade than the rest of the sofa, they'll coordinate with one another.