I Don't know WHAT SORT OF upholstery i need!?
recover, reupholstery- help!
It can be overwhelming if you have never worked with an upholsterer to know what level of upholstery you need. Some of the terms might be a little confusing and how do you know if you need a recover or fully re upholstery? I guess some people might use some different phrases- but let me try and demystify some of them for you.
Most upholsterers will give a estimate rather than a quote as until you open the chair up you don't know what you are dealing with inside. If you- at home can open any bits of the chair up, if there are cushions with zips you may be able to poke around and see if the internals are structurally sound, that will help you to know how much work might be needed, and pass on any of your findings to the upholsterer!

Recover- this will be when the furniture is still in really good shape, and you just want to change the top fabric, your happy with how the chair feels when you sit on it and its comfy and not lumpy. This would mean, I would remove all the existing top fabric, any staples or tacks before covering with your new fabric. Often people think that this is all they need, but once the piece is opened up it can need more work. Chairs with foam in them can often feel ok but inside the foam has disintegrated and turns to dust when the covers are removed. Funny enough older chairs that are stuffed with horse hair have often held up better than the modern foam chairs as the hair doesn't disintegrate, many times the webbing has gone and the springs are hanging out the bottom but the seat pad is actually in good shape- this leads nicely on to....
Part Re-cover/ Part Reupholstery- I think most items end up somewhere hear, they need a little more than a re cover but often don't need full reupholstery. The back and arms of your sofa may be structurally great but the seat cushion has been jumped on and is flat as a pancake, this would mean we could re cover the back, and then get fresh new cushions for the seats. Or as I mentioned above if you have an older chair you may have noticed that the springs are coming through out the bottom but the actual shape and firmness of the seat is ok, in this case we can remove all the parts, re web and spring the chair with fresh webbings, then in some cases we can use the pad again, re stitching and adding a little more fibre where needed. Some people may call this refurbishing too. Often horse hair in older chairs is such good quality its still springy and long even after many years of use.
Full Reupholstery- This really is like going brand new... I would strip everything out right back to the frame, and build it back up. I would say that if you have a solid wood frame and its a piece you love than this is totally worth it, especially a traditional piece thats being restored with hair and springs, it will last for generations to come and become an air-loom piece. In turn it should just need a recover next time it needs redoing, rather than full re- upholstery. Often if the frame is not solid, sometimes made of chip board, or even card board, it will probably cost more in upholstery than the item cost to buy.
As always I would love to discuss any modern or traditional projects with you and if you would like to discuss what sort of upholstery your piece might need, then drop me an email.