Stash Busting DIYs: Patio Furniture Cushion Straps
We bought our first house this year, and it has the most glorious deck. So of course as soon as it was even the slightest bit warm, we bought patio furniture in order to hang out on it. But we’d had the sectional couch assembled and outside for about five minutes before it became clear that the nylon covering on the cushions was extremely slippery, and any mild breeze risked blowing the back cushions in particular out into the yard.
Luckily, as a craft supply hoarder, I have spent years saving the various straps that come tied around curtains and sheet sets, clipping straps off bags that are too worn to save, and basically creating a huge stash of strap-like materials. And although it took me a couple of attempts to get the exact right method, I was able to easily create a system for securing the back cushions to the sectional.
For this DIY you will need:
Canvas or Nylon straps or ribbons – you want something sturdy enough to survive your local weather. I used nylon straps cut off a pop-up laundry basket (we only use the basket as a cat cave now, so we took off the handles so our kitty wouldn’t get stuck in them).
Twine, cord, or some other material that you can thread through your loops and tie to your furniture. I initially used a nylon cord, but ended up switching to velcro straps that are meant to help manage power cords.
Needle and thread
If you are using nylon materials, a candle or (relatively) safe source of open flame, and a small bowl of water for extra safety.
It’s important to note here that this DIY was fairly simple for me because our patio furniture frame is covered in strips of plastic in a basket-weave texture, so it was easy to find places to slide the ties in to attach the cushions. You may need to adjust the placement of your loops in order to attach the cushions to other parts of the furniture if you don’t have the same setup. You might also consider attaching the interior cushions to each other and then attaching the cushions at the edge to the arm or leg of the furniture if your furniture doesn’t have a lot of good places to tie things to it directly.
Plenty of places to attach straps on this kind of patio furniture.
Cut your strap material to prepare the loops. If you are using nylon (as I did), you will need approximately 2 inches for each loop you want to secure. I did a loop on two sides of each back cushion and my sectional has six back cushions, so I needed about 2 feet. If you are using canvas or another fabric and it doesn’t fray when cut the measurements will be about the same; if it frays you will need closer to 3 inches for each loop so you can hem the ends (you can do this on a machine or by hand, whichever is easier for you).
If you are using nylon, the best way to prevent fraying is to melt the ends with an open flame. Please do this carefully! I used a candle outside on our patio table, and I had a bowl of water nearby where I could drop anything if the flame got out of control. It’s best to do this outside or in a well ventilated area to avoid breathing in any fumes from the melted plastic.
Sew the loops to your cushions. My cushions had a corded finished edge, so I sewed the loops to those, roughly in the middle of the cushion’s height.
I forgot to take a photo before I inserted the velcro loop, but this shows clearly how it is attached to the corded edge of the cushion.
Identify your tie/attachment material. I initially pulled a large spool of nylon twine out of my stash (one of those things I’ve had forever and no longer remember where it came from). This held the cushions on just fine (although I did need to melt the ends with flame, the same as the strap material). However, we’ve had torrential rains in my city this summer, and I have had to bring the cushions in several times, as it has rained so hard and so much that even the nylon fabric couldn’t withstand it. The first time I went out to untie them, I realized that the nylon twine knots had gotten much tighter and were very tricky to get undone (one I even had to cut).
Luckily my husband had recently purchased a bunch of those velcro straps for power cord management to tidy up his computer desk, and those straps turned out to be exactly what I needed – they hold securely, they are capable of withstanding stress from the elements, and it is very easy to get the cushions off the furniture quickly. (We have recently acquired a patio furniture cover, which has saved us from having to constantly rescue the cushions from the rain, although we will still need to bring in the cushions once it gets cold and any time they need washing.)
If you live in an area where it never gets cold, or have a roof on your porch or deck you probably won’t need a tie that can be undone and redone as frequently as we do, so your tie could be cord double knotted or something a bit more permanent. But I do recommend the power cord straps if you think you’ll want to move the cushions in and out even a few times a year.
This was a really simple DIY and didn’t take that long to put together – and it works great. The back cushions are on so securely that they also hold the seat cushions in place, so we don’t need additional loops to secure those. And I don’t have to worry about chasing the cushions around the yard anytime it is breezy out.
Would this DIY work for your outdoor furniture? Have you made other alterations to your outdoor furniture to make it work better for you?