Reupholstery, cushions, slipcovers and frame repair
Labour is our number. Fabric is yours. Here are four jobs drawn to scale on the bolt they were cut from, so you can see where the yards go before you spend anything on them.
Call the shop Estimates cost nothing. Bring the piece in, or send photographs.
One drawn row is eight yards of 54 inch goods, and all four drawings share that scale, so the size of the drawing is the size of the fabric bill. Each rectangle is a panel that actually comes off the piece. The hatched block at the end of a row is what is left when the next panel will not fit, and it is fabric you still pay for.
Fabric 1.8 ydLabour $65 a chairIn and out in about a week
Drop-in seats are the one job where the fabric barely matters, because six of them nest into less than two yards and there is almost nothing to throw away. It is also the job that changes a room most per dollar spent. New high density foam under each one, stapled from underneath, and the screws go back in the same holes.
Fabric 9 ydLabour $600 to $1,100Six to eight weeks in the shop
Twenty six panels, and the two nobody thinks about are the outside back and the boxing, which between them take more than a quarter of the run. The wings are cheap in fabric and expensive in labour, because each one is fitted and tacked by hand around a curve. Cut welt lives in the leftovers on the second row, which is the only reason this chair is nine yards instead of ten.
Fabric 17.4 ydLabour $1,400 to $2,600Six to eight weeks in the shop
Three rows, and it is the same chair arithmetic with three loose cushions and six back pillows added to it. The long panels are why a sofa cannot be cut economically on narrow goods: the inside back is seventy four inches on a bolt that is fifty four wide, so it is laid down the length and everything else has to work around it. Fourteen to twenty two yards covers almost every sofa that comes through the door, and this one sits in the middle.
Fabric 11.4 yd2.4 yd moreAt $60 a yard, $144 more
Nothing about the chair changed. The only difference is that every panel now has to start at the same point in the pattern, so each cut is rounded up to the next full 27 inches and the offcut is dead. That is the whole mechanism behind the surcharge you have heard about. On this chair it is $144. On a sofa with the same repeat it is closer to $400, and it is decided entirely by which book you pick the fabric out of. Plain goods, small allover patterns and most textures have no repeat at all.
Before you buy the fabric
Ask the counter for the vertical repeat in inches before you buy. Anything over about eighteen inches adds yards, and a large repeat on a sofa can add four. It is printed on the tag and almost nobody looks at it.
Velvet, corduroy, chenille and most stripes can only be laid one way, so panels cannot be turned sideways to save length. That alone is usually one to two yards on a chair.
Some goods are woven so the pattern runs along the roll instead of across it, which lets a long sofa back be cut in one pass. When a fabric is railroaded a sofa can drop three or four yards, and we will tell you when yours is.
Fabric off our racks runs $30 to $90 a yard. You are welcome to bring your own, and plenty of people do, and we will tell you before you buy it whether it is heavy enough for the piece.
What the labour costs
| The job | Labour |
|---|---|
| Dining chair seatDrop-in seat, new foam and cover | $65 a chair |
| Dining chair, seat and backUpholstered back panel as well | $150 a chair |
| Wing or club chairStripped to the frame and rebuilt | $600 to $1,100 |
| Sofa or loveseatDeck and inside arms included | $1,400 to $2,600 |
| Cushion, new foam and wrapHigh density foam, Dacron, new zipper | from $95 |
| Slipcover, pin fitted on the pieceWashable, tie or tuck in skirt | from $450 |
| Antique frame, retie and repairJoints re-glued, eight way hand tied | quoted per piece |
| EstimateBring it in, or send photographs | no charge |
Half down when the piece comes in, the rest when it goes home. Boat, RV and patio work is quoted per set in marine vinyl and outdoor goods. Prices on this page are illustrative for a design preview.
What comes in the door
It is somebody turning the piece over and telling you whether it is worth the money. A hardwood frame with an eight way hand tied spring deck is worth doing almost regardless of what it costs, because you cannot buy that new for three times the price. A stapled pine frame from a big box store is not, and we say so and you take the chair home.
Ruth Vandiver has redone pieces twice for the same family, once for a grandmother and once for the granddaughter who inherited the chair. About eight pieces a week come in, and all of the work happens on these benches.
Send photographs from the front, the back, one arm, and one from underneath with the dust cover showing, and that is usually enough to quote from. Pick up and delivery inside about twenty five miles is a flat fee.
On the bench
Cord is cut on the bias in strips off the leftover at the top of the layout, sewn around the cord with a zipper foot, and run into every seam that turns a corner. It is the detail that separates a piece that looks reupholstered from a piece that looks recovered, and it costs nothing extra because the fabric it uses was already bought.
Cushions get new high density foam wrapped in Dacron so the corners fill out, and a new zipper if the old one is tired. On a sofa where the fabric is still sound, that one job on its own makes it sit the way it did.
Finding the shop
On Main Street, with a loading door at the back off the alley, which is where furniture goes in and out. Pull round the back for anything bigger than a dining chair. There is a public lot behind the building and street parking on Main. The front door is at sidewalk level and the shop floor is one level throughout.
Serving Liberty, Kearney, Smithville, Excelsior Springs, Gladstone, North Kansas City, Pleasant Valley, Claycomo, Parkville, Riverside, Platte City, Richmond, Lawson, Holt, Independence and the rest of Clay, Platte and Ray.