Custom Chair Upholstery: From Bare Frame to Finished Piece

People usually arrive with one of two questions. Is this chair worth saving, and what happens to it if it is.

The short answer to the first is that it depends almost entirely on the frame, and the rest of this is the answer to the second. Here is what a full chair reupholstery actually involves in our Atlantic Beach workshop, start to finish.

Step 1: Assessing the Frame

Everything starts with the frame, because everything else is built on it.

We take the chair apart far enough to see what we are dealing with. Kiln-dried hardwood with proper joinery is what you want, and it’s what most older chairs have. Joints get checked for movement, any loose corner blocks get re-glued and clamped, and splits are repaired before another thing happens.

This is also where we tell people not to bother. If the frame is stapled softwood or particle board, the money is better spent elsewhere, and we’d rather say that at the start than after you have chosen a fabric. A sound frame, though, will outlive several sets of upholstery. That’s the whole economic case for reupholstery, and it’s a good one.

Step 2: Webbing, Springs and Padding

This is the part nobody photographs and the part that decides how the chair sits.

Webbing is stretched and tacked across the seat frame under tension, and it has to be even, because any slack here turns into a dip you’ll feel in six months. Where the chair has coil springs, they are re-tied. Where it uses sinuous wire, the clips get checked and replaced as needed.

Then the foam. We cut new foam to the seat, and we specify the density to suit the chair and how it gets used: a dining chair and a reading chair want different things underneath you. Old foam does not get reused. It’s already done its collapsing, and putting new fabric over tired foam gives you a chair that looks right and sits wrong. Dacron wrap goes over the top to soften the edges and stop the foam telegraphing through the cloth.

Step 3: Fabric Application

Before a single cut is made, the fabric gets laid out and the pattern placed.

On a patterned cloth the motif has to land centred on the seat and on the back, and it has to run in the same direction across the arms. Get that wrong and it can’t be corrected later without recutting, which means buying the fabric twice. On a pair or a set, the pattern also has to match from one chair to the next.

The fabric is then cut, fitted and pulled to consistent tension across every panel. Welt cord is made from the same cloth and sewn into the seams. Where the design calls for it, nailhead trim goes on last, spaced by hand rather than by a strip, because that’s what stops it looking like a kit.

The Finished Result: What You Get Back

A chair that has been through this comes back better than it left, and usually better than it was new, because the foam and the fabric are specified for how you actually use it rather than for a showroom floor.

How long does it take? For a single chair, a few weeks is the honest answer, and it depends on the fabric lead time and on what the strip-down turns up. We’ll give you a written estimate before anything starts, and if we find something under the cover that changes the number, we call you rather than working on and invoicing for it afterwards.

If you’re weighing up a piece, bring a photograph to the showroom. We’ll tell you honestly whether it’s worth doing. You can see more of the work on our furniture reupholstery page, and if you want to understand the full sequence, our stage-by-stage guide covers it in more detail.

Frequently Asked Questions