Upholstery Doctor

Upholstery Doctor is a St. George shop run by a craftsman who has worked the trade since 2005, handling reupholstery and furniture repair. What the job actually involves is poorly understood, which is why people are startled both by what it costs and by what it produces.

Context

Reupholstery is not recovering. A piece is stripped to the bare frame - fabric, welt, decking, cushion wrap, padding, burlap and often the springs come off, with the old covering kept as a pattern because it is the most accurate template for the new one that exists. The frame is then inspected and repaired, since a piece worth reupholstering is usually old enough for glue joints to have dried out. Springs are re-tied or replaced, new burlap and padding go on, and only then does the new fabric go over the top. Every stage is hand work, which is why the labor is the dominant part of the job.

Yardage is the other thing to understand before ordering fabric. An estimate depends on the piece, on the pattern repeat - a large repeat wastes material because motifs must align across cushions and panels - and on whether the fabric is railroaded, meaning woven so the pattern runs across the roll rather than along it, which allows a long sofa back to be cut in one piece without a seam. A shop provides the yardage figure before fabric is bought, and buying fabric first without one is the most common and most expensive mistake in the whole process. The judgment of whether to proceed comes back to the frame: a kiln-dried hardwood frame with sound joinery justifies the work, and a stapled engineered-panel frame does not.

See also furniture stores and quilt and fabric shops. See every listing under Upholstery & Furniture Repair.

Nearby: Canyon Kitchen & Bath, Renu Auto, Pure Tech Water.