Introduction 

Your favorite chair, completely worthy of the “Archie Bunker” tag bestowed on it by your family, is still oh-so-comfortable. But even you admit its fabric pattern is now beyond what could be considered retro. 

You just can’t stand to lay eyes on that tired living room furniture anymore, but also can’t stand even to think about the price for new furniture of the same quality. 

In an unfortunate accident, your spouse’s beverage of choice has become a part of your favorite sofa. You know you’re in trouble when the cleaners take one look at the stain, cock their heads sympathetically, and make that annoying “tsk” sound. 

Fortunately, a skilled upholsterer can make an old piece look like new again, and our ratings reveal that there are a number of skilled shops in the area. But our ratings also reveal that not all firms do so well. 

Replace It or Recover It? 

A good piece of furniture deserves a second chance. But if you’re thinking of having a furniture piece reupholstered, first take a dispassionate, practical look at it and decide whether it can withstand enough future use to justify the cost of reupholstering. 

You won’t want to reupholster if the piece won’t last about as long as the new fabric. Most furniture of at least medium-quality should be capable of holding up through one or more rounds of reupholstering. But you should check the condition and quality of your piece. 

Some checks are easy. Be sure there are no cracks in exposed wood and that legs or castors are solid and firmly secured. Then check what’s beneath the surface. Take hold of a sofa’s arm or a chair’s arms and push from side to side. If the piece is in good condition, the arms won’t wobble and there won’t be creaking noises. Also, lift one end of a sofa to be sure the frame doesn’t sag or creak. 

A frame that doesn’t seem solid may be able to be fixed easily if it is fundamentally a good piece of furniture. To check, you need to look a little more deeply. Turn the piece over and remove a portion of the dustcatcher beneath. Some signs of quality: 

• Solid hardwood rather than plywood or fiberboard used for key structural members, such as the long piece that runs beneath the knees across the front of a sofa. 
• Wood that is at least one inch or 1 1/4 inches thick used for these key structural members. 
• Reinforcing blocks used to strengthen corners. 
• Coil springs under the seat, with each spring tied by twine in eight directions—although firmly secured sinuous wire springs (long, wavy wires) may function equally well and are used in many high-quality pieces. 

You can get an opinion about the quality of a piece from an upholsterer. You can take small pieces in for the shop to inspect. For large pieces, you can ask an upholsterer to come to your home. Many, but not all, firms will send out an estimator at no charge. Keep in mind, of course, that an upholsterer might be biased toward trying to restore an old piece rather than losing you to a retail store for purchase of something new. 

Just because a piece is good enough to last doesn’t mean you’ll save money by reupholstering it. By reupholstering, you do save the frame, the springs, and probably some padding and stuffing. But a high-production factory may be efficient enough in making a comparable new piece that the price for the new piece is as low as, or even lower than, what an upholsterer will charge you. 

To assess cost, you’ll have to compare price quotes from upholsterers with prices you find for comparable pieces of new furniture at retail stores. If your existing piece is of very high quality or is an antique, an upholsterer’s charges will be small compared to the cost of a replacement piece. On the other hand, if your piece is of low quality, the upholsterer’s charges for fabric and labor are very likely to exceed the cost of a brand new replacement. 

Cost will not be your only consideration, of course. You might want to reupholster a piece if you particularly like its design, if it matches other pieces in your home, if it is a perfect fit for the available space, or for sentimental reasons. Also, you might want to reupholster because the fabrics you like best aren’t available on new pieces at furniture stores. 

Whom to Call? 

If you decide to reupholster, be sure to choose your upholsterer carefully. 

“Work done was precise and attention to detail excellent.” 

“The man’s a genius. The quality of the workmanship is outstanding.” 

“Beautiful work at great price.” 

“Chairs looked better than they did when new...” 

Comments like these from CHECKBOOK subscribers reflect the kind of experience you want from an upholsterer—and there are area firms where that kind of customer experience is routine. But there are also firms where slipshod workmanship and other problems are all too common. 

Your best guide to quality is the satisfaction reported by other customers. On our Ratings Tables, we report results of our customer survey for area shops. We surveyed area CHECKBOOK and Consumer Reports subscribers and asked them to rate shops they had used “inferior,” “adequate,” or “superior” for “doing service properly.” Our Ratings Tables show, for each shop that received at least 10 ratings on our survey, the percentage of surveyed customers who rated it “superior.” (For more information on our customer survey and other research methods, click here.) 

Workmanship is your main quality concern, but promptness is also important—you don’t want to be without your promised sofa when your in-laws arrive. Our Ratings Tables show how surveyed customers rated shops for “starting and completing work promptly.” 

Required Deposit 

It is worthwhile to check how much you’ll have to put down as a deposit. Most shops require between 20 percent and 50 percent of the job’s price. A substantial deposit is fair to protect the shop for the expenditure it must make on fabric, and for the cost of labor if a customer simply abandons a piece. But the smaller the deposit, the more leverage you’ll have for quick service and for corrections if the work is not acceptable. 

How Their Work Looks 

If you want to consider firms we have not evaluated or if you want to learn more about the ones on our Ratings Tables, visit the shops and examine their work. You can look at finished pieces waiting to be returned to customers and you can look at items in process. By visiting more than once, of course, you can see more samples. The following are a few points to look for. 

The Frame 

No shop should send out a finished piece that isn’t structurally sound. If necessary, a shop should completely disassemble and re-glue the frame. Check by pushing and pulling on the arms of chairs or sofas and by lifting the corners of sofas to be sure there is no wobbling or creaking. 

Exposed Wood 

Exposed wood on legs, arms, and seat backs should be cleaned and brightened up. Often all the shop needs to do is rub a piece with fine steel wool and oil. 

The Seat Deck 

The deck is the platform beneath the seat cushions. In a piece with coil springs, considerable skill is required to tie the springs with twine so that they are even. When pieces of old twine have become loose or broken, top-quality shops use new twine to re-tie all springs. Lower quality shops may re-tie only where the old twine is broken, with the likelihood that the old twine will soon break in other places. Also, lower quality shops that do re-tie all springs may fail to get them even. The worst shops may simply try to cover over problems where twine is broken or loose by adding padding on top of the springs. You can check the smoothness of the deck with eye or hand. Better still, you can look at partially finished pieces to see what the shop has done. 

The Skirt 

If a piece has a skirt, the skirt should be lined. It’s best if it is also weighted to assure that it hangs evenly. 

Tufting 

One of the most difficult upholstering skills is tufting—where a thread is drawn through a cushion or seat back at regular intervals to create depressions, which may be ornamented with buttons. Check for uniformity. 

Padding 

There should be padding over the frame in all areas where there may be contact. Feel around arm tops, arm fronts, seat backs, leg rests, and other exposed places to be sure there are no hard edges, because fabric will wear out quickly on such hard spots. In seat cushions, which are usually made of polyurethane foam, the foam should be covered with polyester batting to give the cushion smooth, filled corners and to reduce wear between the foam and the upholstery fabric. Overall, frame elements and cushions should have smooth, even contours. 

Stitching and Welting 

Seams should be stitched so tightly that it is hard to see the threads. Welting, the decorative, fabric-covered cord that is often used around cushions, arms, and seat backs, should be smooth and even. The best approach is to cut the fabric for welting on the bias, so that the fabric threads run at an angle to the cord. 

Pattern Match 

A stripe, a vine in a floral pattern, or any other distinct line should flow from the top of the seat back across the cushions and down the front of the frame and skirt. There should be no more than a half inch of irregularity. Patterns should be used symmetrically; if there is a stripe down the center of the right arm, there should be one at the same place on the left arm. Major elements, such as a large flower, should be centered on the seat back or cushions. It takes skill and time to match patterns. Also, when using a fabric with a large pattern, substantially more fabric is needed to do the job properly than to do it poorly. So shops may make compromises. 

Fabric Selection 

You would also like to use a shop that helps you make a good fabric selection. Most shops can order almost any fabric. Also, if a shop can’t get a fabric, you can purchase it separately somewhere else and simply bring it to the shop to apply. But it’s convenient to use a shop that has a wide choice of fabric samples and that gives good advice on fabric selection. You can easily check out this aspect of shop service on your own. 

Price 

Among shops that meet your quality standards you’d like to find one that also offers good prices. As Table 1 illustrates, prices can vary sharply. For example, we got quotes ranging from $1,495 to $2,600 for one reupholstering job and from $600 to $1,410 for another. 

The price index scores on our Ratings Tables show how shops’ prices compared when our researchers called shops (without revealing their affiliation with CHECKBOOK), that were evaluated in our last full, published article, and obtained prices for six sample jobs. The price index scores are adjusted to a base of $100 and show you relative price levels. For instance, a score of $110 means a shop’s quotes were, on average, 10 percent higher than quotes of other shops on the same jobs. 

The price index scores are a useful predictor of how the rated shops are likely to compare in price to other shops. But don’t rule out shops with relatively high price index scores. We often found that sometimes shops that were high-priced on some jobs were low-priced on others. 

Most upholsterers will quote prices over the phone if you give them a good description of the piece and the name and number of the fabric you want. To make it easier for shops to give firm prices, it’s a good idea to send a picture of the piece you want reupholstered. Better still, if the piece is small, you can take it to a few shops for an estimate. For large pieces, an option may be to have upholsterers come to your home—although not all firms make home visits and some charge for the service. 

When comparing prices, be sure to ask exactly what is included. Depending on the shop, the quoted price might or might not include— 

• Re-gluing, 
• Re-tying springs, 
• Replacing the webbing beneath springs, 
• Touching-up exposed wood, 
• Wrapping cushions in new polyester batting, 
• Supplying arm covers, or 
• Delivery. 

Keep in mind that such differences might explain some or all of the differences in the price index scores shown on our Ratings Tables. For shops that don’t include important restorative work in their base prices, the price index scores on our Ratings Tables may be misleadingly low if your piece will need significant restoration. On the other hand, some shops that routinely allow for restorative work in their quotes may be willing to shave a little off their prices if you can assure them that your piece is structurally in like-new condition. 

Getting the Best Results from Any Shop 

After you have picked a shop, you must deal with it carefully to be sure that you get the best possible job for the money. 

A first decision is whether to buy fabric from the upholsterer or from a fabric shop or other source. Upholsterers usually charge full list price for fabric while many fabric shops will offer discounts of 20 percent or more. But upholsterers expect part of their profit to come from the fabric. So most will up the price for their labor by 25 percent or more if you supply the fabric. As a result, the savings you get somewhere else on fabric may be offset by an increased labor charge. The only way to be sure which approach is less costly is to price the job both ways—buying fabric from the upholsterer and buying it at the best price you can find elsewhere. 

Of course, you’ll probably want to supply your own fabric if you already have some you like or if your upholsterer can’t get it for you (as will be the case with many discontinued patterns). 

Wherever you purchase fabric, be sure you get material that not only looks good but will also wear well. Ask the upholsterer or fabric store for a fabric’s durability rating, which is available from the manufacturer. A light-duty, light-colored fabric may be fine for a rarely used living room. At the other extreme, you’ll want heavy-duty fabric in a medium color for a family room used heavily by children. Also, be aware that the fabric will last longer if it is treated with a soil protector. And find out how your fabric is supposed to be cleaned. 

Before you turn over your furniture to an upholsterer, be sure to discuss fully exactly what work will be done and get the main points written onto an estimate, contract, or drop-off receipt. You should have a document that at least indicates the price and whether re-gluing, re-tying of springs, new webbing, new batting for cushions, arm covers, and delivery are included. Also, be sure the projected completion date is noted. 

When you pick up or receive an item, check it over. Check the sturdiness of the frame, the matching of the fabric pattern, and other quality points discussed above. If an item doesn’t meet quality standards as you and the shop have discussed them, insist that the work be done again.