Upholstery · Templestowe
Templestowe is a ten-minute run from our Eltham North workshop. We repair, recover and restore sofas, recliners, dining chairs and antiques for homes across Templestowe, and we take the small jobs as readily as the big ones.
Send a photo for a quote Call 0425 832 619What we do
We reupholster lounges and dining chairs in any fabric or leather, rebuild seats with new foam, webbing and springs, repair and recover recliners and service their mechanisms, restore antiques with traditional methods, French polish timber, and make custom pieces such as ottomans and bed heads.
Local
Templestowe was one of the first places we noticed a pattern that now shapes how we quote. People here tend to have bought good furniture in the first place, often decades ago, and they would rather have it put right than replace it with something that will not see out the decade. A solid hardwood frame with tired foam and a worn cover is exactly the piece worth doing, and Templestowe sends us a lot of them.
It is also a suburb of long-held family homes. The 1970s and 80s brick houses on the big blocks around the hill and down toward the river were built to be lived in for a lifetime, and the furniture inside them often has been. That suits us. Our workshop is in Eltham North on the other side of the Yarra, so pickup and delivery is a short local run rather than a courier job.
From the bench
A recent one was a recliner from a Templestowe family whose owner has a bad back. The seat had gone soft and low, which is what happens to a recliner once the original foam gives up, and the back was not supporting where it needed to. We rebuilt the seat with an extra two inches of high-density foam to bring the height and firmness back, then padded the back out and shaped that padding to where the customer actually needed it rather than to a factory standard. It is the kind of tailoring you cannot buy new. The mechanism was checked and serviced while the chair was on the bench.
The same household had sent us their dining chairs a while earlier for repair, which is how a lot of Templestowe work arrives: one job done properly, then the next piece when it needs it.
Down the road in Bulleen we rebuilt and recovered seating for the Veneto Club, one of the area's best known venues, which is the commercial end of exactly the same work.
Comfort and mechanisms
Three jobs come up again and again from Templestowe. The first is comfort. A lounge or recliner that was perfect twenty years ago has lost height and support as the foam compressed, and the owner has started to feel it in their back. The cure is not a new lounge. It is new Dunlop HR35 foam at the right density, 200 for a firm seat and 165 for a softer one, cut to bring the seat back to its original height, and padding shaped to the person who sits there. Dunlop backs that foam with a ten-year warranty.
The second is recliners themselves. Templestowe has a lot of them, manual and electric, and the mechanism usually outlasts the upholstery. We recover recliners and service the mechanism at the same time, so the chair goes home working as well as it looks.
The third is the leather lounge bought from a good maker in the 80s or 90s. The frame is nearly always sound, and a sound hardwood frame is worth recovering in leather, fabric or a commercial-grade vinyl. Leather is sold by the whole hide, so for a single cushion or a small repair we will often suggest a matching vinyl rather than making you buy a hide for a patch. We will tell you which makes sense for the piece.
How we work
Upholstery, machining and French polishing all happen in our own workshop, so a chair that needs a re-glued frame, new springs and a polished show-wood edge never waits on a third party. Where a frame calls for it we use nine-way hand-tied springs; where webbing suits the piece better, we web it. Hardwood frames we build carry a thirty-year guarantee, we are fully insured, and there is around a hundred years of trade between the three of us: a restorer and French polisher with fifty years, a machinist with thirty and an upholsterer with twenty-two.
Templestowe customers are welcome to come and see the workshop and look at fabric in person. It is a residential address, so give us a call first.
Worth knowing
Two quotes for the same lounge can be a long way apart, and the gap is almost always in the work you cannot see once the cover is on.
Our quote includes stripping the piece to its frame, repairing joints, replacing tired webbing and springs, new Dunlop foam, and a cover cut and sewn to the piece rather than stretched over the old foundations. That is why we sometimes come in above a cheaper quote and sometimes below it: we price the work the piece actually needs, with quality materials, and aim for a high-end finish at a mid-tier price. If another quote is well under what good materials cost at wholesale, something has been left out, and we will say so plainly.
Whoever you choose, ask what happens beneath the fabric and how long they stand behind it. There is more in our guide on how to choose an upholsterer.
Good to know
Yes. Templestowe is about ten minutes from our Eltham North workshop, just across the river, and we pick up and deliver so a lounge or recliner never has to go in your car.
Yes, and it is a job we do often here. We rebuild the seat with higher-density foam to bring the height and firmness back, then pad and shape the back to where you actually need the support. It is tailored to you rather than to a factory average.
Yes, manual and electric. We service or repair the mechanism while the chair is on the bench, so it goes home working properly and not just looking new.
Usually, yes. A sound hardwood frame from a good maker is the best possible starting point, and recovering it costs a fraction of replacing furniture of that quality. If a piece is not worth doing we will tell you so from the photo.
Both. Loose joints, broken rails and sagging seats are repaired first, then the seat is rebuilt and recovered. Drop-in seats can often be turned around the same or next day with a little notice.
Sometimes. If the cover is sound and comes off cleanly we can renew the foam underneath it. If it is worn or sewn in, recovering at the same time is the better job. A photo usually tells us which.
Send a photo through the form on this page or text it to 0425 832 619. Quotes are free with no obligation, we reply within 24 hours, and the price is firm once you have chosen your fabric.
Yes. Templestowe Lower, Doncaster, Doncaster East, Bulleen and Warrandyte are all on the same short run from Eltham North.
Yes. We rebuilt and recovered seating for the Veneto Club in Bulleen, and we do booth, banquette and club seating for venues across the north-east, working after hours where a venue needs to keep trading.
Because they rarely describe the same job. Ask each upholsterer what happens under the fabric: frame repair, webbing, springs and foam. Compare that list rather than the number at the bottom.
Usually. Foam that went soft in a year, webbing that was wrong for the piece, a cover that does not sit, a chair that still wobbles. Send a photo and we will tell you plainly what it needs. There is more in our guide on putting a reupholstery job right.
Nearby
Work in Templestowe is run out of the same Eltham North workshop as the rest of our furniture reupholstery work across Melbourne. For the full range of what we take on, start at the Dylberry Design upholstery workshop.
Local to Templestowe, send a photo of your sofa, chairs or piece and we'll come back with a rough price. Pickup & delivery by arrangement.
Send a photo of your piece and we'll come back with a rough price, no obligation, no pressure.
Send a photo for a quote Call 0425 832 619