Making Your Own Patio Furniture Replacement Slings?

Patio furniture replacement slings are easy to order, and with the stunning collection on sale here at Sunniland Patio, you'll be spoilt for choice when it comes to colour, design, size and texture. But if you're one of those people who like to fix everything themselves you might be up for the challenge of making them yourself.

So if you're thinking of going the whole DIY route and want to make your replacement sling from scratch, well where do you start?

Out with the old

You'll need to start by measuring your pre-existing patio furniture sling. Start by gently removing the end caps from the sling rail ends with a flat-edge screwdriver, and any screws with an electric screwdriver. Once youve done this, turn the patio furniture on its side; this'll make it much easier to remove the sling from the frame.

Sizing up

Lay the pre-existing sling fabric flat on a table and measure its length and width, taking special care to make sure the latter is consistent all the way along the length. Youll find when removing the sling that it contains rods, or dowelling. You'll need to measure these too, and include the measurements in your fabric measurement.

Handy tip: drill bits can be used as a handy comparison tool when trying to gage the size of your rods.

Sunniland Patio furniture replacement slings come with new, custom fitted dowelling as standard, so if you're going the DIY route you'll need to source your own new dowelling from somewhere. A hardware store will sell you wooden rod of various thicknesses.

Choosing your sling fabric

Here at Sunniland Patio, we use top quality Sunbrella fabric a strong, durable and heavy-duty weave purpose-made for patio furniture seating. Finding an affordable, equally practical replacement sling fabric will be a challenge. You may have the perfect fabric in mind, that will make for a completely unique set of patio furniture. That's great, but consider these points first:

• Does your fabric provide a degree of flexibility?
• Is it easy to cut-to-size?
• Can you sew through it? Remember youll need to hem its unfinished edges as well as creating pockets for the dowelling.
• Is it durable?
• Weather-proof?
• Breathable?

These are the things that will need to be considered when choosing your patio furniture replacement sling fabric.

Installing the new sling

Once you've done all the above, you'll need to refit the sling before putting all the bolts and caps back on. Make sure to stretch the fabric as you slide it back onto the patio furniture to prevent wrinkles. You might find a clamp can help with this.

DIY projects can be fun, but they can also be challenging, time-consuming and costly, a tricky game of trial and error. There's also the chance that your end result might be aesthetically challenging, or worse: structurally unsound. In our opinion, it's best to leave it to the professionals when it comes to sourcing patio furniture replacement slings, and good news: you've come to the right place! Browse our full collection of patio furniture replacement slings. 

It's not cheating, it still counts as DIY if you buy the sling precut. Just think you could have bought a whole new set of patio furniture, now that would be cheating!