Porch swing refurbish

After a few years of outdoor furniture cushions being outdoors they start looking really bad. With the sun beating down on them along with the rain, wind, dirt and constant use they look pretty beat up! I have a metal porch swing that is maybe only 3 years old and for the most part is overall in pretty good condition. The Metal still looks new but the cushion fabric was severely sun faded, dirty and worn so thin that it was shredded in a few places.

Here is a picture of my swing from last summer.  Now it may not look too bad but I have to say in this picture it is around because it was shredded so bad on the other side. Hence the white trim along the back and edges. You can see that it has strings loose etc.. It was just in bad bad shape.

Well this year my husband was insistent we get a new swing but I couldn’t justify spending another $200 on a new swing when the frame and metal on this one was in perfect condition. I jumped online to see if I could find new cushions to purchase and that was a joke! Either they were way over priced and I could have just bought a whole new swing or they were ugly patterned and not the correct size. So I went back to the drawing board and decided to make my own swing cushion!

I took the old cushions to work on and realized I could take the old fabric and just use it as a template / pattern for my new cushion cover. I was shocked to see the actual cushion underneath the fabric looked practically brand new! Talk about an awesome surprise.

Now I am kind of mad at myself for this next step in the process because I didn’t take a SINGLE PHOTO after this 🙁 I am so sad and mad at myself because it was quite the process! It is a lot of material to work with on a normal sewing machine but it can be accomplished. I used 4 yards all together 2 yards for the top and 2 for the bottom. I bought the actual outdoor fabric so it will hold up a little longer than normal fabric. Of course I found it on sale.. then topped it off with a coupon. The fabric was 40% off and I used a 15% off coupon on top of it. So, the fabric for this cushion ended up being around $34.00 which in my eyes is much cheaper than a whole new swing at $200 +

Of course I had to make some pillows to add to it! I sewed a pocket along the back and of course added the ties to the edges so it would stay on my swing!

I wish I would have taken pictures along the process so you could see a step by step tutorial!

The shadows of my deck rail are showing up quite a bit in these pictures but I wanted you to at least get a feel for how bright and colorful it all turned out! I love the mix match of the pillows and have more fabric to whip up some more if I want to. Don’t throw out your items do what you can to upcycle, refinish and refurbish what you have! Not only does it save money but it keeps our landfills from filling up faster. So happy to have a new (to me) swing!