Upholstery in
Armadale

Armadale is the suburb people think of first when they think of antiques in Melbourne. The antiques and design strip sets the tone, and the Victorian and Edwardian houses around it tend to be furnished to match: balloon-back dining chairs, spoon-back nursing chairs, button-back armchairs and tub chairs in pairs. Underneath the cover the story is usually the same. The hessian has perished, the webbing has let go, the springs have worked loose from their lashing and the horsehair has migrated to wherever gravity took it.

With a piece like that we restore rather than recover. It goes back to the frame, the joints are tightened and re-glued, the webbing and hessian are replaced outright, the springs are re-tied nine ways where the frame was built for it, and the original horsehair stays wherever it is still sound, teased out and re-carded before it goes back in. Tired show wood is polished at the same bench.

If a piece comes with a brief, whether that is a dealer wanting it fit for the floor or a designer with the fabric already chosen and a room already in mind, we work to it exactly. Private owners get the same hands and the same methods either way.

Occasional chairs are the quiet workhorses of an Armadale house: the bedroom chair that holds tomorrow's clothes, the hall chair nobody sits on, the slipper chair by the window, the pair of tubs either side of a fireplace. Often older than the people who own them and bought for their shape rather than their comfort, they tend to have a loose leg, a seat dropped through its webbing or a cover faded on the sunny side. Because a small chair takes a metre or two of fabric, the cloth is a small part of the job.

That small quantity changes the conversation about cloth. On a family sofa we steer people toward 25,000 Martindale rubs or better, and 30,000 or more with big dogs in the house. A chair sat on twice a week can carry a lighter, more decorative weave, and it is often the one place in a room where a special fabric makes sense. We carry quality Australian and imported fabrics, or bring your own; our guide to hard-wearing fabric explains the ratings.

Dining chairs sit in the same category. Drop-in seats can be recovered the same or next day with notice, while a fixed-seat set with sprung or stuffed bases takes longer because there is real upholstery under the cover. The dining chair guide covers both.

A good share of Armadale lives in apartments, from interwar flats to newer developments, and the furniture is scaled to fit: two-seaters rather than three, a single armchair rather than a pair, an ottoman doing double duty as a coffee table. When we arrange a pickup we ask about lift and stair access first, because a sofa that fits the room does not always fit the stairwell.

The faults on apartment sofas are predictable: seat foam gone flat, back cushions that have lost their shape, and on many newer lounges a surface that has started to peel. That peeling finish is bonded or PU leather rather than real hide, and the frame under it is usually fine. We recover those in fabric or in Austex commercial-grade vinyl, which wears hard and costs about the same per metre as entry-level leather. Seats are rebuilt in Dunlop HR35 high-resilience foam, 200 density for firm and 165 for softer, with a ten-year warranty on the foam. Our leather versus vinyl guide walks through the choice.

The other apartment request is something made to measure: a bed head that fills the wall behind the bed exactly, a window seat cushion cut to the bay, an ottoman sized to clear the sofa and still open for storage. We build these on hardwood frames to your dimensions and your fabric, which is usually the only way to fit a room where nothing off the shelf does.

The workshop is at our home in Eltham North, and there are three of us on the tools: a restorer and French polisher with fifty years in the trade, a machinist with thirty and an upholsterer with twenty-two, around a hundred years between us. Nothing is sent out. Stripping, frame repair, springing, stuffing, machining, polishing and the final cover all happen under one roof, so the person who quotes your chair rebuilds it. Visitors are welcome to see the bench and the fabric shelves, but please call first.

Every seat we rebuild uses Dunlop HR35 foam with its ten-year warranty, or traditional stuffing where the piece calls for it. Springs are hand-tied nine ways when the frame was made for that and re-webbed when that suits the chair better. Hardwood frames we build carry a thirty-year guarantee on the frame, we are fully insured, and fire-rated foam is standard on commercial seating and available on request for anything else.

A complete quote for a period chair itemises the strip-out, frame or joint repair, new webbing and hessian, springs, stuffing or foam, fabric by the metre, polishing if the timber needs it, and collection and delivery. We price the actual work using quality materials, so on some jobs our number is the lowest on the table and on others it is not. A quote sitting well below what proper materials cost at wholesale has skipped something, usually the springing or the stuffing, and the seat tells you which in a couple of years. Our reupholstery cost guide explains where the time goes.