As I mentioned in passing the other day, we hacked up a very old sofa at the weekend. We wanted to give it away for re-use as a sofa but it was in frankly awful condition – thanks to the cats and just years and years of use – we got it at least third hand after it had been a family sofa then used at some offices.

We stripped it down before getting rid of it though – I covered the sofa foam on Monday, the wooden frame has gone into a scrap/fire wood pile, and we’re going to see if we can use the (flat) springs as some kinda notice board and/or use as a support for french beans in the garden next summer.

We also cut off the leather from the bits that weren’t utterly ruined/torn – mostly the back of the sofa and the backs of cushions. They’re quite a soft leather with nice, clean suede on the other side. But what can we do with it?

I always like practical suggestions but am open to crafty ones too – especially if I don’t need to buy special tools for it.

We’ve got a reasonably large pile of old upholstery/sofa foam – some flat and square, other bits random shaped.

We dismantled a very old (but beloved) sofa at the weekend – some of our collection came from that, with other cushions/padding from other people getting rid of sofas/cushions, or ones that have been used as padding during house moves at one time or another.

We’ve used some of the foam cushions to make a little sheltered bed in our greenhouse for the local stray cat but don’t know what to do with the rest of it.

Any suggestions?