Getting to the Bottom of a Saggy Seat....

OR : How to fix a Sagging Sofa

If your seat is hanging a little low to the ground, if the bottom's falling out and your ass is almost on the floor....have I got the fix for you. A tiny bit of minor surgery, a couple of tools any one should have around the house and you're in business.
Our sweet little 89 dollar love seat, that we took home on the roof of our even sweeter little Honda Civic, from the thrift store a few years ago looks awesome. I mean it's just adorable, pretty pattern, nice colors and the cushions were comfy.
Yeah, they WERE. Eventually after much tv viewing over the past few years we found ourselves sitting at awkward angles, listing towards the middle, cracking heads occasionally and finding it harder and harder to get up out of the sofa.
We thought we were clever when we realized the cushions were fine it was the webbing stuff under them that must have loosened and stretched. Easy solution, start jamming old pillows under the cushion. Sure you might eventually be sitting 4 feet higher on the sofa, head brushing the ceiling but at least your tush is happy.
Lately I've been on a cleaning spree and organizing spree and my mind wandered back to the sofa, I had this thought that maybe I could just rip off the material covering the webbing, remove the webbing and reattach it a lot tighter. Yeah.....sounds like a lot of work. I agree, that's why my mind wandered to it but not my actual hands.
I did a quick internet search and people suggested slapping a board under the cushion over the frame...that wasn't what I had in mind, we've tried that on a previous sofa and it was toooo hard.
Then I saw a mention on a site about some one wrapping a sofa frame in packing straps and the old fluorescent light bulb in my head started blinking like mad.
We happened to have 4 pretty blue tie downs. The kind that lets you get the straps reallllly tight with the little tightener doohickey thing.
A little investigation revealed that the decorative flap on the front of the sofa was stapled down, and that the fabric covering on the bottom of the sofa was stapled down.
When I revealed my idea to my sweetie pie man I saw the same beautiful warm fluorescent glow shining out of his peepers.

(note: the sofa is laying on it's back, sweetie is hammering like a mad man pushing the staples that hold the flap in place back in.)

Not all sofas are the same but I am betting you could do this to any, even the kind with metal springs. Basically we added new, taught webbing to the love seat by looping the tie downs around the frame, with the connection hidden tidily underneath, and if we need to readjust the tension we can flip the sofa and do so. Even though we pulled the staples out of the fabric covering the bottom of the sofa, it stays in place because the legs screw through it, so we have easy squeezy access to the tie down tightener doohicky thng-a-ma-jigs.
You can only see a tiny bit of the tie down on the front and if I wasn't lazy I could have slit a tiny hole in the front fabric and had the strap go under it for complete hidden-ness. Our tie downs are blue so they match the sofa anyways. I did pry up the pretty decorative flap on the front of the sofa and had them travel under that, then just hammered the loose staples back in place.
We haven't had a chance to try this out for a long time and I'll let y'all know how this will be for the long haul, I do know that tie downs are CHEAP, I think ours were 30 dollars total for the four of them and a quick look online shows me I could have got them cheaper. Dang!
I figure we can always add more if need be in the future and also have them criss cross the straps we just added.

(note: see how my straps go through the back of the sofa? They're inside the frame, hidden by the back fabric.)

I don't know how much getting a sofa re-webbed or re-sprung would cost at a sofa repair place but I'm betting it's more then 30 bucks, not to mention the hassle of hauling it around. This was cheap, fast and effective.
So many people are so quick to throw things away now a days, a little thought and ingenuity and you can maybe bring new life back to old items.
The cool thing about a sagging sofa you're on the verge of being rid of is that it should mean you have NO fear about trying this technique. If you need to slice a little hole here and there to thread the tie downs through, who cares? Chances are any holes could be hidden under the fabric covering the sofa.

(note" The straps are connected to themselves under the sofa. I think this picture is oddly pretty. The straps will be hidden by the fabric we put back on, using the sofa legs to hold it in place)

My other thought is if you're frugal like we are and enjoy a nice bargain or thrift store find this might make you look at an old cheapo sofa with a sagging seat with new eyes.
By the way, that previous sofa I mentioned we tried the board under the cushions technique with. Don't think for a second we threw it out, instead we stripped it down to the wood one night, I saved all of the fabric, and we have the wood frame sitting in the garage, waiting for inspiration to use it for something. The only part of it that made it in to the landfill was the nasty old foam, and if I could have saved it I would have but it was falling apart.
I just realized my tie down webbing technique might only work on a sofa with removable cushions. How ever if you have a cushion-less sofa perhaps you could do the tie down technique but with a little extra work of getting it under the fabric etc.

(note: inspection by the kitty who watched our entire less then 30 minute sofa restoration. Everything met with her approval EXCEPT not being able to actually get UNDER the sofa. Since she watched us she now knows there IS an under, she saw it and is baffled.)