As consumers increasingly recognize the impact of good sleep on physical and mental health, they’re paying more attention to the quality and comfort of their sleep environments. Some fabricators say that demand is spilling over into the marine market, where many clients are seeking custom foam mattresses—and specially tailored custom bedding—that make their onboard berths closer to those they enjoy at home.

Customizing client mattresses

Many clients renovating their boats want replacement mattresses that offer significant improvements in comfort. For some, that means firmer support; others prefer the cushioning that can come from products such as memory foam.

To address those varied requests, bedding fabricators need a solid knowledge of which products on the market will produce the best results for their clients. And they often must be skilled in achieving those results by cutting, sandwiching and gluing different grades and thicknesses of foam.

They also need spatial know-how to tailor products around obstacles and odd angles. In some cases, fabricators must know how to hinge mattresses to allow for underside storage or ease of installation.

To help convey possibilities to clients, Krisha Plauché, owner and principal designer at Onboard Interiors & Hood Canvas LLC in Marblehead, Mass., put together an entire sample bed she can bring to boat shows or vessels. She also asks myriad questions to determine exactly what clients want.

“We ask what they sleep on at home, and if they want to recreate that, we can do the research and get as close as possible,” she explains. “Latex is our ‘princess’ foam if someone wants the crème de la crème.”

Other fabricators have followed similar processes, asking clients to try out various foam samples so they understand the differences.

Katie Bradford, retired owner of Custom Marine Canvas in Groton, Conn., prefers foams with a minimum density of 2.6 pounds and recommends avoiding memory foam because it can harden in cold settings. She often used foam supplier B&M Upholstery Supply LLC of Lebanon, Conn.

Drew Hall, operating partner at Seafarer Canvas & Interiors in Norwalk, Conn., favors memory foam, ultra-mid foam and other varieties, and says it’s important to use the right foam saws, tools, templates and cutting angles during construction.

Using mattress-in-a-box products can be as effective as custom-gluing foam mattresses, according to Jeff Newkirk, MFC, owner of Precision Custom Canvas Inc. in St. Catharines, Ont., Canada.

“For fabricators who don’t have the space or don’t want to get into gluing or laminating, so many mattress-in-a-box companies make 100 percent foam mattresses at excellent rates,” Newkirk says. “A quick cheat is to buy one that has the height and foam makeup that matches the project, then cut it down and shape it to fit using a foam saw. That allows clients to go to the store and test the product, so they take on the responsibility for selecting the right grade and firmness.”

Newkirk notes that some clients do request residential-style quilted mattresses for their boats, in which case, he subcontracts with other vendors who have special sewing-machine attachments for the job.

Customizing boat bedding

In many cases, clients already own satisfactory mattresses but want specially tailored sheets, blankets, comforters, pillows and/or bedspreads for their berths. All can be custom-made from scratch, but many fabricators say the best method is often to start with a store-bought bedding set.

“We’ll go through a couple questions in terms of what they want, thread counts and color specs, then I’ll either go purchase a set or send them out to purchase one,” says Newkirk. “I’ll essentially tailor them to fit the bunks.”

Bradford notes that many of her customers approached her with a clear idea of what they wanted, and her job was to finesse the details and make their visions reality. For example, some wanted their bed cushions covered together for comfort, while others wanted them covered separately for ease of below-bed storage.

“We allowed customers to choose any fabric they like, so their personal style can be expressed,” she says. “We steered them to cotton/polyester blends, since cotton will get clammy in a damp environment and all polyester will be sweaty. And we steered them away from large or busy patterns that don’t work well in a closed environment.”

Hall says his tricks of the trade include creating paper templates of mattresses to help with the adjustment of store-bought sheets and adding elastic under-mattress bungees to fitted sheets for improved stability.

Bedding challenges

Even for analytically inclined fabricators, customizing marine bedding can be challenging. Odd angles and inconvenient bulkheads represent some of the most obvious problems.

Plauché says projects are harder when she and her team can’t board a boat to take measurements. She points to V-berths as particularly challenging “because of the insert pieces and how to handle the inside corners. Do I tuck in or overhang the fiddle? Make the insert look like a cushion to match the bedspread or give it its own piece? Those need to be thought out [depending on] how the customer uses the boat.”

Making patterns match up for all products regardless of size can call for advanced skills, long work hours and higher price tags. “If you don’t account on the pattern for any bulkheads, side tables or height changes in trim,” says Plauché, “then the bedspread drops won’t fit correctly or nicely.”

Hall agrees. “Cushions on boats are never 90 degrees straight. We’re always trying to get them to line up.”

Requests for custom quilting can be another challenge. Plauché notes that the necessary quilting machines can be hard to find. Bradford has subcontracted quilting work to specialists who haven’t always followed directions.

Prevailing trends: cooler colors, coral prints

When it comes to trends in marine bedding, Hall sees many clients replacing outdated browns, tans and greens with blues, grays and whites. Solids, stripes and prints—including prints with images of coral—have been popular.

Newkirk says most of his customers choose basic solid colors instead of prints. “Boats are small spaces, not massive bedrooms where you can have unique prints and things. It’s not focal point; it’s function. And the client base I work with is just looking for high-grade cotton, not anything different or special. Sometimes we’ll use one of the main upholstery fabrics being used in the rest of the boat to make day covers for bedding.”

Conversely, Plauché says her clients seem to be warming up to larger, bolder patterns. “Gray is still trending because it’s so popular in residential design. And many people aren’t using poly batting or quilting; they just have two pieces of fabric as a minimalistic look.”

Fun with design

Despite the challenges of creating marine bedding, Plauché and Bradford say it’s among their favorite project types because it presents creative opportunities.

Plauché remembers one of her especially innovative designs on a Baltic yacht christened “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” after The Lord of the Rings series. “I took inspiration from the book and used lots of nature-inspired fabrics; Kravet fabrics had a great selection at the time,” she says. “In the bunk room for the owners’ young boys, I used a birch-tree-inspired fabric for the bedspread, and on the accent pillows, I designed pillows with glow-in-the-dark thread, monogrammed with sentences deciphered by lining up the pillows. For the primary stateroom bedspread, I selected a deep-brown-toned textured fabric from Perennials Fabrics and designed a dragon tail monogrammed in black metallic on the top and side so it would look like a dragon was sleeping under the bed. The customer went crazy happy over it.” 

Michelle Miron is a freelance writer based in Hugo, Minn.

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SIDEBAR: Pro bedding techniques

Katie Bradford, retired owner of Custom Marine Canvas in Groton, Conn., suggests the following:

For sheets, add enough seam allowance at the corners to make true French seams. For inside corners, try inserting triangular gussets. The top of the triangle never looks nice, so make a true boxing for that area. Make 6-inch hook-and-loop straps and sew them to the bottoms of cushions to hold inside corners taut.

• Elastic breaks down before sheets, so rather than serging elastic on, put it in a casing so it can be replaced. For casing, use a 1/2-inch double turn for 3/8-inch elastic. If you fold the casing over the elastic, you’ll catch it while sewing. Custom Marine Canvas sews a hard cord in there so they feel it and don’t catch it. Sew the elastic to the cord and use the cord to messenger the elastic through the casing.
• For mattress pads, remove boxing first. Pin the mattress pad out flat and trace the cushion
  on it. Sew the outline of the cushion, then add a second row of stitching about an inch outside that. Cut between the two rows. Sew the boxing back into the mattress pad and bind the seam allowance.
• Have nice labels made (Bradford used Dutch Label Co.) showing which berth the bedding goes to.
• Household sewing machines can work better than industrial machines to prevent bedding fabrics from bunching.

Jeff Newkirk, MFC, owner of Precision Custom Canvas Inc. in St. Catharines, Ont., Canada, recommends, “When tailoring store-bought sheets, don’t try to reuse the elastic. Cut it away, make adjustments then sew new elastic in.”

Drew Hall, operating partner at Seafarer Canvas & Interiors in Norwalk, Conn., says, “Always over-measure, over-take pictures and over-try things out to see what works for you. Albany Foam and Supply Inc. has a zillion different foam options for mattresses and can walk you through things.”

Krisha Plauché, owner and principal designer at Onboard Interiors & Hood Canvas LLC in Marblehead, Mass., suggests fabricators “use a right angle to give you the bevel. We do that even for sheets to account for the way they’ll fit.”