The Ideal Height for Floor Pillows
Floor pillows are a great way to expand the potential seating in smaller room settings. The pillows can be stacked and tucked under a table when they are not in use. If the floor pillows are well-planned, they will stack well and be of the right size to fit in the area where you store them. One trick is to purchase or make floor pillows that have a strong sidewall. These are usually called cushions, rather than pillows. Another trick is to use floor pillows that have a larger welting cord along the edges. The welting will help the cushion hold its form. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
-
Foam Heights
-
Most fabric stores sell sheet foam in 1-, 2-, 4- and 6-inch thicknesses. Usually these are a lower grade of foam intended for craft projects. If you use this type of foam for seating, say the cushion on a sofa, then you will probably not be satisfied by how it performs when you sit on it. Cushion foam that is used by upholsterers will often have a higher density and indentation characteristics which allow the cushion to offer more support when weight is placed on it. The most common height of foam sold for cushions is 4 inches thick. However, this is not the whole story.
Custom Wraps
-
Usually people want a cushion to support them and for the surface to be soft. If you look at a quality-made floor pillow, you can sometimes see where the cushion form is about 4 inches thick but then the top center of the cushion puffs up a bit. This extra puff is created by adding a custom wrap over a dense cushion form. The wrap is usually made of Dacron and it acts to provide the surface softness that people enjoy, while the rest of the cushion provides the support.
-
Adding the Wrap
-
When you add the wrap to the underlying structured size of the working cushion, you end up with an ambiguous measurement between 4 and 6 inches, depending on the loft of the wrap and the rigidity of the form. A lofted pillow will still stack well because the Dacron wrap compresses more easily under less pressure, making the effective height of the floor pillow closer to 4 or 5 inches when you are stacking it.
The Ideal Height
-
Determining the ideal height for floor pillows should be based on appearance and comfort. In general, the 4-inch base cushion wrapped with a Dacron wrap will give you the aesthetic appearance of a substantial and comfortable seat that you can sit on for some time without discomfort. A thinner pillow will be less than your ankle thickness. If you sit with your legs crossed and your feet off the cushion, your ankle thickness or the width of your shoe should be smaller than the thickness of the cushion. This allows your foot to rest more comfortably.
-
References
- Photo Credit Jack Hollingsworth/Photodisc/Getty Images
