Upholstery in
Glen Iris

Glen Iris is one of those established, leafy pockets of the inner south-east where a house tends to be lived in for decades rather than flipped, and the furniture inside it follows the same pattern. Californian bungalows and Edwardian weatherboards along the quiet side streets hold onto their original pieces, and when a sofa or a set of dining chairs finally needs attention, the sensible answer is to have it done properly rather than replaced.

The suburb sits south of our Eltham North workshop, close to the Gardiners Creek trail and the leafy stretch that runs through toward Malvern, and pickup and delivery by arrangement means the distance is never really a factor. We collect, do the work at the bench, and bring it back finished.

It is also a suburb with a fair number of family homes mid-renovation, and a renovation can call for two things at once: an older piece the owners want kept, and a new custom item, a window seat or a bed head, made to fit the space that has just been created. We can do both under the one roof.

Glen Iris furniture does not need to be dramatic to be worth doing. A lounge that has done fifteen years of family life and still has good bones, a set of dining chairs that came with the house, or an occasional chair that was reupholstered once before and is due again are all pieces we are glad to take on.

Where a piece is genuinely old, we treat the job as a restoration rather than a straight recover. That means keeping original horsehair padding and re-carding it if it is still sound, replacing hessian and webbing rather than patching over it, and only bringing in foam where the piece genuinely calls for it.

Newer furniture needs less drama: a cover that has worn through or dated, a cushion that has gone flat, a recliner mechanism that has stopped working smoothly. All of it is straightforward work, done at our own bench rather than farmed out to a subcontractor.

Furniture that has survived a few decades in an established suburb like Glen Iris has already proved its frame is sound, which is good news, because the frame is the expensive part to get wrong. What tends to fail first is everything built onto that frame: springs that have dropped, webbing that has perished, foam gone hard or crumbling at the edges, and a cover that has simply worn through where it gets the most use.

We rebuild seats with Dunlop's high-resilience foam, a firmer 200 density for a dining seat that takes a lot of sitting and standing, or a softer 165 for a lounge chair meant for sinking into, backed by Dunlop's own ten-year warranty. Where the frame was built for it, springs go back in nine-way hand-tied rather than a flat replacement, which is what keeps an older chair feeling the way it always has.

Choosing the new cover is worth some real thought rather than a quick pattern pick. We will talk you through weight and wear rating as much as colour, and for a family sofa we recommend at least 25,000 Martindale rubs, more again if there are dogs in the house. There is more detail in our foam guide if you want the full picture before deciding.

Upholstery, machining and French polishing all happen under the one Eltham North roof, so a piece that needs a re-glued joint, new springs, fresh padding and a polished leg never has to wait on someone else's schedule. Between the three of us there is close to a century of combined trade, a restorer and French polisher of fifty years, a machinist of thirty, and an upholsterer of twenty two.

Hardwood frames we build carry a thirty-year guarantee, and the workshop is fully insured for anything that comes through the door. Glen Iris visitors are always welcome to come and see the space and the fabric range for themselves, it is a residential address, so a quick call ahead means someone will be free to walk you through it.

Ours covers stripping the piece back to its frame, repairing any joints that need it, renewing webbing and springs where they have gone, new foam at the right density, and a cover cut and sewn specifically for that piece. We price the work in front of us rather than a standard rate, so sometimes our number is the lowest quote a Glen Iris homeowner gets and sometimes it is not. A price well under what quality materials cost at wholesale has left something out of the job.