bean bag sofa / bed

Step 2 Choose your sofa size

the size of your sofa determines how much cloth you need. where a standard beanbag-chair is a sphere (ball), the beanbag-sofa is a cylinder shape (tube with end caps). there are several possible sizes of sofa you can make, with convenient names:

sofa model        diameter       length
---------------------------------------------
pea              3 feet           3 feet    (standard beanbag chair)
garden slug      3 feet           8 feet    (recommended)
banana slug      4 feet          10 feet    (bad! diameter is too big!)
centipede        3 feet          30 feet    (around-the-room sofa)
earthworm        1.5 feet         8 feet    (back rest only)
millipede        3 feet        1000 feet    (block party sofa)

it turns out there is also a jellyfish sofa, the jellyfish is what you get when you don't have enough beans in the bag to keep its shape and it just squooshes out all over the floor. the problem with the banana slug that i built - and the reason i don't recommend it - is that when it is filled enough to not be a jellyfish, it no longer will fit through a doorway. and it is just way too huge for a normal room, it tends to envelop everything else in the room. months later you'll discover your little dog toto buried in the folds of the jellyfish.

oh yes, so your spool of cloth must be as wide as the diameter of the sofa. for the recommended "garden slug" sofa you'll need a spool 3 feet wide and 32 feet long. use something sturdy! i made mine out of corduroy. there's a good selection of fabrics for $4-8 per yard at my local fabric store.

Comments

[soundofmusic]

I just noticed if you switch the diameter with the length you'd have something like a love sack!
Pretty neat instructable :3

[kreatalot4214]

i have a small suggestion, what if instead of beans, why not try using plastic store bags? im sure a lot of us out there have bags of them laying around for trash, other projects ect. but using them in these bags could eliminate a lot of waist.

[SewLolita]

that's actually pretty common- around here, a lot of people with pets and kids do it, so when the inevitable little hole in the bag occurs, the bags stay in, rather than them having to clean up a million tiny bits of foam.

they do make a bit more noise, and don't shift around quite as easily, though.

[duckie013]

omg.. the names of the different bean bags are awesome.. i wanna go in on a millipede!! anyone wanna help?? haha

[ilpr123]

haha, i'm in!

[setoles]

hi i was just wondering the measurements for the fabric in garden slug

[shmyt]

Not to sound dense but what are the dimensions for the pea(in terms of l/w)?

[lum]

Has anyone made the block party one (millipede)? I am interested in making one that wraps around my garage for a party. I have been asking for fillers on Craigslist and have been pretty successful so far. But I wonder if such a large sofa works well. Has anyone made one? Any photos?

[Mig Welder]

I really doubt anyone has made a 1000' sofa...

A smaller version may be doable though.

[BraisedDuck]

good friend of mine made one millipede size for a big party he was throwing.it got stuck at doorways almost all the time and it took about 10 of us to carry the whole thing.and the worst part is, at the end of the day the whole thing burst open and we had to spend almost an hour cleaning up.(>_<)

[watergrrl]

We followed these directions and made a garden slug a few months ago. We went to Bay Foam (about 2 hour drive for us but the only place I could find, and it's such a great deal!) and got two bags of the foam. We only used about 1.5 bags. First we filled it with 1 bag, then we let it settle for a few weeks and shoved some more in. (Wear a cloth over your mouth while pouring it in! or you will be inhaling bits of this stuff. not good.) It's cool and all but I think a bigger diameter would be more like a couch. 3 feet is pretty low to the ground. My mom volunteered to sew the cover, and she made an inner lining too. We found the fabric at a discount fabric shop while in Arizona (SAS fabric). I think the fabric cost total was about $40 (this includes both inner and outer). She included a zipper on both which made it easier to reopen to refill with more stuffing. When we moved recently, it was so much fun to carry the slug. We looked like a dragon from the chinese new year parade. and it was so light and movable! (once we got it out the door, which was tight but not too tough. a 4 ft diameter would surely be problematic.)

[fancypenguin845]

if you used waterproof material you could make one that just stayed outside all the time and if it got dirty just spray it with a hose... lol

[unjust]

use a woven, not a knitted cloth. knitted cloth will strech in unusual ways and the bag will need to be overfilled to keep it's shape. to use a knitted material (say plush holstien print) back it with a sturdy cheap fabric (like muslin) and use the plus as a cover, or a 2nd layer.

[dan]

good tip. how can i tell just by looking at the cloth? or maybe i can tug on it in different directions to see if it stretches at all?

[unjust]

woven will +/- look like each thread goes either n-s or e-w, and knitted will be hard to follow individual threads. compare a tshirt (knitted) to a dress shirt or jeans. note that some weaves (houndstooth or brocade notably) will not be a simple over under, but can be very complex. woven will strech/skew (since it functionally shortens in another direction) only on the bias (diagonal from the weave direction) which you can easily expiriment with a bandanna on, where as knit will strech in any direction. to add to the fun "non-woven" textiles(which are discrete from woven or knitted) (fleece, tyvek, etc) can exhibit any number of strech or non strech messes. if you can't see threads, it's probably non-woven and some expirimenting is in order.