Upholstering 101

I had picked up a couple futon mattresses from the trash. One of them was red on one side and black on the other. I separated the two sides and pulled all the stuffing out — it's cotton batting that wraps around three layers of urethane foam. I cleaned the pieces of fabric.

I used plywood for the seat bottoms and back, cut to fit the mounting holes. I cut pieces of foam and wrapped each in batting then cut sheets of red fabric, wrapped them around the seat-side of the seats and stapled it all in place. I just kept finding where the fabric was slack, pulled it tight, and stuck in another staple.

In my mind I wanted something like lips which is why I picked red. I decided to cut notches in the seat back to imply lips. I want to maintain the industrial-organic appearance and very fluffy, organic-looking lips would seem out of place so I gave the "suggestion" of lips. I haven't had a chance to put it together to see how it looks.