Each of us in the upholstery trade, whether  advanced professional, or beginning do-it-yourselfer, has tiny tidbits of information that would be helpful for others to know. Upholstery is not a self-enclosed trade. Many people come into this trade with a wide variety of backgrounds, skills, and interests. Even a rank beginner, who may have a wide depth of knowledge in other areas of his/her life, may learn or discover new or better ways of doing something, of supplies to use, that other more experienced professionals may never have thought of.

Are there any basic rules to upholstery?

Rules are merely guidelines about what works in many cases. The important thing is how the job turns out, not whether or not we followed a rule. The quality of the finished product is more important than the method used to produce it." You use whatever methods, skills, tools, and supplies needed to produce a quality product.

Should you use a Skirt Stiffener?

To answer the question of whether or not to use a stiffener, you need to look at the purpose and use of a stiffener. Whether or not you need a stiffener often is determined by the type of fabric, the method of skirt construction, and the type of furniture that has the skirt.

There are several methods for making a skirt.

Upholsterers often have challenges in repair/reupholstering furniture that was made years ago. When the original manufacturers made each piece of furniture, they had specific parts and supplies that were available to them. Sometimes they used whatever parts and supplies were used widely and readily available. In some case they had parts or supplies manufactured specifically for use on certain pieces of furniture. Over the years, since the furniture was built, the suppliers for parts and supplies haved change what they have available, or they have went out of business.

What do you do when you picked out a fabric that easily frays at the edge?

Seam binding: Most upholstery fabrics don't need anything done to the edge. Many upholstery fabrics have a special backing the minimized seam unraveling. However, there are a few fabrics that easily unravel.
In these cases

Are you thinking about purchasing a used upholstered sofa or chair? How much should pay for it? Will you have it reupholstered, or will you be using it as it is?

Each Piece of Furniture Has 3 Values

When going out to buy used furniture, the buyer should keep the following three values in mind, the true value, the value to the owner, and the value to the buyer. This knowledge will help to negotiate when you want to purchase used furniture.

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When you are reupholstering furniture with a trim between the fabric and the wood, What type of trim should you use. This article will give the pros and cons of each type of trim.

Gimp Trim

When I worked with my dad years ago we stocked many colors of gimp. In that case, it was always there ready to go.

One of the most important tools of any upholstery shop is a cutting table. A cutting table is used for many things beside just cutting fabric. Here we will look at some of the ideas behind the sizes and how it is used. Because the tables for upholstery is very specific, and it's not very easy to find one the right size, most upholsterers build their own tables. But, how big should you make it?

Upholstery is one of the trades that can be operated from many types of buildings;

• a retail store building
  
• A commercial type garage
• your home
• your garage
• from an outside shed
• a temporary building
• a mobile home

In this section we will discuss the layout of the shop and the fixtures and machines that are used in an upholstery shop.

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How do you find a good upholsterer? What is a good upholsterer?

It takes work to find a good tradesman in any profession. Upholstery is no different.

If an upholsterer has been in business for many years, there must be a reason why he is still in business. That is one good sign.

When trying to decide upon a name, I'd like to give my thoughts about how names fit on signs and domain names. If you are putting a name on a sign, the more words you have in the main part of the name, the smaller the letters will have to be. I'm going to be a little bit overly rediculous, just do show a point. And, so that we don't get distracted by the name, for this example, I'm going use a completely different name.
First Example:

If you are starting or refocusing your upholstery or sewing business, you may be trying to decide exactly what you will be doing. For example, will you only be sewing cushions, or only making slipcovers, or will you be doing all phases of upholstery. This is important to decide because it affects what you will be writing in your advertising.

Upholstery is a very specialized trade. We often take on a wide variety of projects. Sometimes those are one-of -kind projects that we are creating from scratch, or we might be making a number of the same type of furniture items, such as cushions, church pews, or restaurant booths. Other times we may be altering the frame, the style, or the cushions on a piece of furniture.

Creating Text

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Recently I had a  client vist the RV Cushions page of my upholstery business website.
 She said that she had some RV cushions that she wanted me to make. Since I've never done any work mail order before, I'm trying to work out the details. I'm wondering, is mail order too much trouble, or does it have great potential to add to my business.

Getting Correct sizes
1. Client to measure the cushions

(note: you can click on any picture to enlarge it.)

The situation, you have a lazyboy recliner and you need to move it.  Because of their unique recliner mechanism, this proceedure will only work on Lazyboy recliners. Lazyboys are built to come apart easily. Turn the recliner around so that you are at the back of the recliner.

Quality Standards and Expectations vary according to skill level.

When we pay someone to do a job, we expect a high level of qualilty. When we pay for a professional, we expect professional results.

Beginners are not held to the same standard as experienced processionals. The stand level of a professional would be impossible for a beginner to achieve on the first effort. If all beginning upholsterers had to do it perfectly the first time, no one would ever succeed.

When sewwing a braided rope trim on to a cushion/or pillow - I would like to know how to finish the ends so that it looks like one continual piece???

I have sse it done - but, do not know how??

I would appreciate your help...

Pam Lawrence
Slipcover Sensations & Custom Window Creations

Winnie; the Life of a Wing Chair

by Faith Winters

Birth. It is noisy here with the sound of hammers large and small, the regular ping, ping, ping of nail guns. It begins to take shape. What started as a pile of wood has become the frame of a wing chair. The frame was taken to the next area where springs, webbing, support linings and padding are added. The chair still seems blank and bare as it sits in a row of other blank chair frames. They all look just a like; silent, unfinished and expectant. This one is picked out of the group and taken to yet another area of the huge warehouse. An upholstery craftsman begins to stretch a beautiful green, gold and orange tapestry fabric over the frame. The soft tapping of the tack hammer sounds almost gentle as each piece of fabric is carefully fitted onto the frame. The chair begins to take on color, personality and a richness of dimension. One could even say, the wing chair comes alive.

Should An Upholsterer Pay Referal Fees?

Should an upholsterer pay a referral fee from a decorator or another business? When an upholsterer is first starting out, or low on work, he may be desperate and be willing to accept almost any conditions, just to have work to pay the bills.

Look at it from the client's point of view. Is a paid referral really unbiased? If a decorator or other business is getting a kickback from a particular upholsterer, will the client get the best service?

Reupholstering Antique Furniture

See the original article at Winters Sewing

When you are considering having a antique reupholstered, there are a number of factors that need to be considered. What is most important to you? Preserving the frame, restoring to original, just making it usable, keeping the cost down, etc.?

Using Leather in Upholstery

This drawing* shows how the different parts of a leather hide are used in upholstery. The A Section of

Planning Where to Cut

A cutting layout (or a cutting plan) can be anything from a few measurements hastily taken to a very detailed layout plan (see illustration below). The amount of detail and/or the complexity of the plan depend upon a wide number of factors. A very simple job may not even need a written plan (although we may have a plan in mind), while a very large project with many parts may need a very detailed plan. Justg keep this in mind, if you start cutting without a plan, you have a large potential for not having enough fabric.

Being in any type of business, you may occassionally get "suggestions" from friends and aquaintances to do free work. When these requests come, it is helpful to think it out in advance and have a ready response waiting. Here are some suggestions.

 Note, we do sell this paddings. This page is merely here to give you a picture and a description of these items.

Modern Upholstery Paddings

Smoothing Out Cording on Curved Pillows
The solution can be fairly simple, however you may need to experiment a little with some scrap fabric.

Others may have different solutions. This is my suggestion. The solution has several parts. Read all the instructions before beginning.

1. Summary.

The project was an upholstered cornice, with a 3/8" welt along the top and bottom edges. The instructions were "Match the welt as best as you can". Normally cornices that have shaped bottoms with striped fabric have the welt made in a contrasting welt, or have the fabric cut on the biased. In this case we decide to experiment to see what could be done. The result was that the welt matches the bottom of the cornice, even around the curves. Read about how we did it.