Upholstery & reupholstery
in Wonga Park

Wonga Park sits further east along the Yarra than Warrandyte, straddling the Yarra Ranges, Manningham and Maroondah council boundaries, bordering Warrandyte and Warrandyte South to the west and running toward Croydon, Chirnside Park and the edge of the Yarra Valley wine country to the east and south. It is one of the few suburbs this close to Melbourne that has kept its semi-rural character: horse properties, orchard-era blocks and generous acreage rather than standard house lots.

Bigger properties tend to mean bigger furniture: large lounge suites, wide dining settings built for entertaining, and pieces bought with the idea of staying in the family rather than being replaced every decade. The scale of it is really the only thing that sets Wonga Park apart from suburbs closer in, the type of work is much the same.

It is a longer run for us than Warrandyte or Eltham, out through the township and along the river, and pickup and delivery is by arrangement, whether it is a single chair or a full lounge suite.

Furniture from a property like this is rarely a single chair. It is more likely to be a full lounge suite, a long dining setting for ten or twelve, or several pieces from the same house done together, which fits properties built for entertaining family and friends rather than a quick weeknight dinner.

Furniture like this has often been in the same family for a long time, bought once for a house that was always going to need generous furniture, and kept in good order since. When furniture like this needs work it is more often a fresh cover and a rebuild of the seating than any structural drama, because the frames were built to last.

Custom pieces suit properties like these too: bench cushions for a long window seat, an ottoman sized to match an existing suite, or a set of outdoor cushions cut to fit an existing verandah setting rather than bought off the shelf.

Furniture on acreage properties works harder than furniture in a standard suburban lounge room. Animals mean more dust and hair tracked in, bigger windows and open plan living mean more sun exposure, and furniture used for entertaining sees more traffic over a weekend than some households see in a month. All of that shortens the life of foam and fabric well before the frame gives out.

We rebuild seating with Dunlop high-resilience foam, choosing 200 density for a seat that needs to stay firm under heavy use or 165 for a softer sit, both carrying Dunlop's ten-year warranty, and hand-tie springs using the traditional nine-way method where the frame calls for it rather than fitting something that will sag again in a year or two.

For fabric, we generally recommend at least 25,000 Martindale rubs for a family lounge and 30,000 or more where there are larger dogs in the house, which is common on properties like these. If a lounge or set of chairs has started to peel rather than fade, it is very likely bonded or PU leather rather than real leather, and a close-match vinyl recover is usually the practical fix, since the frame underneath is normally still fine.

Upholstery, machining and French polishing are all done at the one workshop in Eltham North, so a large dining setting needing new fabric and a re-polished table does not have to be split between different tradespeople. Between us that is close to a hundred years of combined trade experience: fifty years of restoration and French polishing, thirty years as a machinist, and twenty-two years in upholstery.

Hardwood frames we build carry a thirty-year guarantee, and we are fully insured for every job, from a single dining chair to a full lounge suite. If you would like to see the fabric range and the workshop before deciding, you are welcome to visit, it is best to call ahead so we can make time properly.

A proper quote for a full lounge suite or a long dining setting still covers the same basics as a single chair: the frame checked and repaired, webbing and springs renewed where needed, quality foam fitted, and the cover cut and sewn to the piece. We price each job on what it actually needs, which means a bigger property does not automatically mean a bigger bill, but a quote well under the cost of decent materials at wholesale for a job this size has almost certainly left something out.