Cushions & Pillows

A cushion is two purchases, the cover and the insert:

and they age at different speeds. A good cover with a hidden zip can outlive three inserts, while a cushion sewn shut is finished the day its filling goes flat. Polyester fibre inserts are light and cheap but clump and flatten within a few seasons on a sofa that gets sat on. Feather inserts cost more, take a deep chop down the middle and fluff back to shape. Foam keeps its height under weight, which is why chair pads and bench cushions use it. Panamanian shops sell covers and inserts by the inch, and decorators buy the insert one size up from the cover so the corners fill out. Lumbar pillows are the long rectangles that sit in front of a pair of squares; bolsters are the round rolls at the end of a daybed. Floor cushions and poufs belong on a rug rather than bare tile, where they slide and gather grit.

Outdoor seat cushions and the upholsterer round the corner:

a patio or balcony set is where cushions suffer most. Look for solution-dyed acrylic such as Sunbrella, where the colour runs right through the fibre, rather than printed polyester, which fades from the top face down. The foam matters more than the fabric. Ordinary upholstery foam soaks up a downpour and stays wet inside for days, while open-cell quick-dry foam lets the water run straight through. Upholsterers all over Panama cut foam and sew covers to measure, so a tired set rarely means the end of the furniture: old cushions make the template, and good outdoor fabric over failing foam can simply be refilled.

Printed throw cushions against designer ones:

a printed 18-inch cushion from a home store is around $10 new, and a designer cushion with a feather insert can pass $200. Second-hand, the cheap one fetches next to nothing, since the same print keeps coming in new, and whoever takes it is really paying for the insert. The designer one keeps its value while the cover is unmarked and comes off, because a fresh insert then makes it as good as the day it was bought.

Under the zip of a second-hand cushion:

open it: the cover is what the photo shows, the insert is what went wrong. Yellowed or stiff patches on the insert are old spills and sweat; lumps you can feel through the cover mean a fibre fill has clumped. Press a foam seat cushion flat and let go. It should spring straight back, and foam that crumbles into yellow dust at the edges has had its life. A musty smell inside a patio cushion means water reached the foam, and nothing from the home fragrances shelf will get in there. On the cover, run the zip end to end and check the corners, where piping wears through first.

Bed pillows, the one thing worth buying sealed:

a pillow is slept on every night, so a used one carries years of sweat that a wash does not take out, and few buyers will take one on. The exceptions are pillows still in their packaging: the spare pair from a bedding set, extras bought for a guest room, a memory foam pillow that turned out too high. Those are worth listing with the size, standard, queen or king, and the fill printed on the label.

Passing on a living room’s worth of cushions:

sell them as the set they were bought as, because a matching pair is worth more than two singles. Give each one’s size in inches and centimetres, the fabric from the care label, the fill, and whether the insert goes with the cover. Photograph them in daylight, one cover unzipped to show the insert, and mention a cat or a smoker in the house up front. For a patio set, measure every seat and back cushion including its thickness, because the person driving over from Penonomé will be checking them against a frame at home that you have never seen.