RV Dinette Seat Spring Upgrade March 2014 Chris Choffat After

RV Dinette Seat Spring Upgrade
March 2014
Chris Choffat
After several camping trips where I became tired of sitting on the bricks that the
manufacturer calls seat cushions, I decided to do something about it. After all, they are
merely foam blocks sitting on plywood. The foam is so dense so as to look nice and keep
their shape without any regards to what constitutes a comfortable seating surface.
I decided to look at what made my flexsteel furniture in my previous motorhome more
comfortable, and realized that is basically like a household couch or stuffed chair. I was able
to find couch springs quite easily at an upholstery supply and all the clips needed to make
this project work.
For $30, I was able to redo about 6 ft of seating. I chose to do the
two sides of the rear wraparound dinette in our 2010 Nomad trailer.
The materials in the photo may differ from what you find, I used
slightly different clips. It really depends on where you mount them.
The spring comes in 140 ft rolls for about $30-40 or you can buy
them in pre-cut lengths. I bought 24” pre cut springs for 97 cents
each. The clips were 9 cents apiece and you need two for each
srping.
First, I removed the removable OSB-Plywood convert-a-bed panels. As a couple, we don’t
use it as a bed anyway, so I figured that comfort trumped guest bedding. I kept the padded
trim boards from the front of them to hide the gap. Mine were just screwed in with matching
snap covers. It was a matter of simply removing them from the OSB panels and using all the
same screws and caps to mount them to the existing base permanently.
I then tried different spacing between the springs to get the right feel. Since there are
different spring rates, you may need to try different spacing. I have no idea what gauge or
tension they were as they were in a big tub at my local upholstery shop. There don’t seem to
be many sizes. I’d guess these were about equal to 8 or 10 AWG wire. I settled on three-inch
spacing from bracket to bracket. This gave me a nice compromise between the feel of an
upright chair and a couch. I did not place coil springs between them, but I have seen some
photos like that. I think that my spacing of 3 inches eliminates the need for that. In the photos
below I show the markings and the finished product. I used two 1¼ drywall screws for each
bracket. I chose to mount them to the frames, but a removable frame could also be made
so the entire assembly could be lifted out, but I would venture to make that out of angle iron
as these springs are under constant tension when installed.
Even though the springs replace a removable
panel, you can reach between them to
access some items, or pop them out for
maintenance such as the water pump in mine.
I may actually put some cabinet doors on the
fronts as time goes on and my storage needs
increase.
Now that I got the seat portion resolved, it was time to address the rear seatbacks. My seats
were basically two hard foam bars zipped into two sections of the seatback. I took the top
one and cut “V” shaped notches from the back surface to about 2/3 the way into the block.
This makes the seat “give” a bit more when you relax against it but it keeps its shape when
you are not using it. I left the bottom ones whole, as that gives more lumbar support when
seated upright.The cushions do pucker a bit at the top and the rear, which I am sure can be
dealt with by cutting holes from the rear instead of the “V’s” like I did on the corner blocks
below
I then cut an oval hole in the center of the corner blocks in addition to a couple of “V’s” like
the side cushions.
I’m happy with the results, and it looks
stock. This was a much lower cost option
than ripping it all out and replacing it with
a sofa or a couple of recliners.