Upholstery & reupholstery
in Viewbank

Viewbank sends us a steady run of family heirlooms, and the pattern here has its own shape. A lounge suite bought for a first home that has since moved with the family through two or three more houses. A bed head or an ottoman made for a room that no longer exists in the same form because the house has been renovated around it. People here are not precious about keeping everything, but the pieces that matter to them, they keep properly.

It is much the same story just down the hill in Macleod, where we do a similar volume of work. Between the two suburbs we are out collecting and delivering often enough that a job from either address slots straight into the same run, no special trip required.

A lot of the homes on the high side of Viewbank, up toward the ridge with the view over the valley, were built or renovated in the eighties and nineties, and the furniture that came with them is now at the age where foam has gone soft and covers have worn through, even though the frames underneath are still excellent.

A lot of what comes out of Viewbank has clearly been loved rather than just owned. A lounge that went into a first apartment, then a first house, then the house the family is in now, each time patched up a little rather than replaced. By the time it reaches us the frame is usually still worth the work, it is the foam, springs and cover that have given up.

We also see a fair number of custom pieces from this pocket, bed heads and window seats made to fit a particular room, because when a family has already decided to keep and reinvest in their furniture rather than buy from a shop, made to measure tends to follow naturally.

As in Macleod next door, these are rarely rush jobs. Families in Viewbank plan ahead for this work, often booking it in around a house move or a renovation rather than waiting for something to break.

The most common issue on Viewbank lounges is simply age catching up with the foam. Dunlop HR35 foam loses its resilience over fifteen or twenty years the same way any foam does, and the fix is a proper rebuild rather than a patch, fresh foam at 200 density for a firmer seat or 165 for something softer, with a ten year warranty behind it either way.

Frames that have travelled through a couple of house moves sometimes pick up a loose joint or two along the way, which we reglue and reinforce before touching the upholstery. Where the original piece was nine way hand tied, we retie it the same way. Where it was webbed, we reweb it. Either way the goal is a seat that supports the way it did when it was new, not just a fresh layer on top of a tired base.

For families choosing a new fabric, we talk through wear rating as well as look, particularly with kids or pets in the house. A family sofa should hold up to at least 25,000 Martindale rubs, more again with large dogs, and there is more detail in our fabric guide if that is useful before you choose.

Because upholstery, machining and French polishing are all done in house at our Eltham North workshop, a Viewbank job that needs a repaired frame, new springs, fresh foam and a polished timber leg goes through as one job rather than three separate handoffs. That is where around a hundred years of combined trade experience earns its keep, fifty years from our restorer and French polisher, thirty from our machinist, twenty two from our upholsterer. Any hardwood frame we build carries a thirty year guarantee, and we are fully insured throughout.

You are welcome to come and see the workshop and the fabric range for yourself. It is a residential address, so a quick call ahead means someone will be free to show you around properly.

Our quotes cover stripping the piece to its frame, repairing any joints, renewing springs and webbing, new Dunlop foam and a cover cut and sewn for that specific piece. We price the work rather than a headline number, aiming for a high end finish at a mid tier price, which means we are sometimes the lower quote and sometimes not. If a quote sits well below what good materials cost at wholesale, something on that list has usually been skipped, and we would rather point that out than let you find out the hard way.