Upholstery Foam Cut to Size

Upholstery foam cut to size, made to order in the UK. Give us the length, width and thickness and we cut it — no standard blocks to trim down, no waste to pay for. Whether you are reupholstering a whole suite or replacing one seat pad, you order the exact piece the job needs.

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What counts as upholstery foam

Upholstery foam is the resilient polyurethane foam used inside seating and furniture — distinct from the soft packaging foam sold in craft shops, and from memory foam, which belongs on a bed rather than in a chair.

The thing that makes a foam suitable for upholstery is that it pushes back. Sit down, and it should support you and return to shape when you stand. That behaviour comes from density, which is why picking the right grade matters more than picking the right feel.

Choosing a grade for each part of a piece

A common mistake is ordering one foam for an entire project. Different parts of the same chair want different things.

  • Seat platforms and seat cushions — Blue, 33 kg/m³. These carry full body weight every time. Standard UK domestic upholstery grade.
  • Back cushions and lumbar rolls — White, 28 kg/m³. You lean rather than sit, so comfort matters more than support, and a firm back is actively uncomfortable.
  • Arms, bolsters and scatter cushions — White, 28 kg/m³. Shape-holding rather than load-bearing.

If you buy one grade for everything, buy the seating grade — too firm in a back cushion is a nuisance, too soft in a seat is a cushion that fails.

Fire retardant upholstery foam

All the upholstery foam we cut is supplied to meet the UK Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 — the same requirements that apply to the foam inside furniture sold in UK shops. You do not need to order a different grade for it.

Foam thickness for upholstery work

Thickness does as much for comfort as density does. Too thin and you feel the frame through it regardless of grade.

  • Seat cushions: 10–15 cm
  • Back cushions: 8–12 cm
  • Dining chair pads and drop-in seats: 5–8 cm
  • Headboards and padded panels: 2–5 cm

Working with covers: order to the cover, not the foam

This is the single most common error in reupholstery, and it is worth spelling out. Foam compresses as it ages, so a ten-year-old insert can be several centimetres smaller than the cover it came out of. Measure the cover, laid flat, and order that size.

Foam should fill a cover firmly. A piece cut to the shrunken old foam will slide about inside the cover and the cushion will look collapsed at the corners no matter how good the foam is.

Many upholsterers deliberately order 1–2 cm oversized on length and width for a tight, plump finish, particularly on fixed covers. That is a judgement call — if your cover is a tight fit already, order to the cover exactly.

Wrapping, and why professional cushions look plumper

A bare foam block in a fabric cover will always look a little flat at the edges. Upholsterers wrap the foam in polyester wadding — dacron — before it goes in, which softens the arris and fills the cover into its corners.

If you are wrapping, allow for it: a 2 cm wrap on each face adds roughly 4 cm to the finished dimension, so order the foam to the cover size minus the wrap rather than adding it on top.

Shaped and non-rectangular pieces

The calculator prices rectangles, which covers most upholstery work. We can also cut circles, radius corners and bevelled edges — useful for round stool tops, bay window seats that follow a curve, and seat fronts with a rolled edge. Contact us with a drawing and measurements for a quote.

For anything with a genuinely irregular outline, the usual trade approach is to order a rectangle that encloses the shape and cut it down with a sharp bread knife or an electric carving knife. Foam cuts far more cleanly than people expect.

Sizes we can cut

  • Maximum single piece: 203 cm × 116 cm (80 × 46 inches)
  • Thickness: 1 cm to 100 cm
  • Minimum length and width: 10 cm

Sofa-length pieces beyond 203 cm are normally made as two pieces butted together inside the cover — standard practice, and invisible once the cover is on.

Never roll packed

Foam sold compressed has to recover before you can work with it, and it does not always recover evenly. Ours is cut to order and dispatched uncompressed, so it arrives at full loft and you can measure and fit it the day it lands.

Is your foam fire retardant?

Yes. The foam we cut is supplied to meet the UK Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988, at no extra cost and on every grade we sell — white, high-density blue and memory foam.

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