Upholstery Question

[john moorhead]

Folks -

Do any of you out there building furniture that needs upholstery do the work yourselves, or do you farm it out? Upholstery and Blacksmithing have always seemed like one of those "black arts" to me, but smithys might feel the same about building a set of chairs.... Who knows???

I have several chairs that, ahem, need attention, and was wondering if anyone here had taken the plunge. I'm not talking about doing a whole sofa (for now) but more just redoing seats, seat backs, cushions and simple contours such as chair arms and the like.

A year or so ago, I repaired an old chair for a friend - the dowelled joints had worked loose and it needed to be disassembled and reglued. I think I charged her $100 or so as it only took a couple or hours or so of actual work. I didn't re-cover the seat and she went elsewhere for that work and it was over $200. So I did some thinking....

Thanks in advance for your remarks....

John Moorhead Lakeport CA

[Larry Jaques]

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 05:35:54 GMT, "john moorhead" brought forth from the murky depths:

I've reupholstered several ottomans (1 with 4" fur which had been my teenage bedspread). For all the info in an easy-to-follow book, get:

Upholstery Techniques Illustrated W. Lloyd Gheen Tab Books ISBN 0830604022

Also talk to BentCajunGirl (Perry, are you still posting here?) She's a real upholstery guru making real money at it.

-- Remember: Every silver lining has a cloud. ----

Comprehensive Website Development

[Silvan]

My neighbor is into that. His shop is MUCH bigger than mine, much nicer, heat, A/C, fridge, windows, roll-up door... It's very boring to me, since

*all* he does is upholstery work, and there's nothing of interest out there.

He has a huge ass industrial sewing machine and a honking big compressor with a variety of air tools. That's about *all* he has out there, though I haven't really seen it since the day I helped him carry that giant sewing machine in there.

I honestly have no idea how much he makes at that, or whether he makes anything at all, but he never seems to be without work. He's always dragging raggedy looking couches and whatnot in there, then bringing them out a couple days later completely transformed.

He makes a lot less noise than I do. That's really about all I can tell you, but I can talk to him about it over the fence if you want.