Upholstery Finder/Guides/How long reupholstery takes, and what makes it slower
How long reupholstery takes, and what makes it slower
Only about six per cent of upholstery shops say anything usable about turnaround on their websites. I know because I tried to make it a column on this site and had to give up.
The full result is worth repeating, because it is the whole reason this page exists. Nine per cent of shop pages mention a timeframe at all. Six per cent state one clearly enough to record as a fact. So when I say the trade does not publish this, I mean I went and counted.
That makes it one of the harder things to find out before you commit, which is a shame, because for a lot of people it's the deciding factor. A dining set can live in a workshop for a month without anybody minding much. A restaurant's booth seating cannot, every day it's away is a day those covers aren't earning.
The numbers that exist
From the shops that do publish a timeframe:
- One to three weeks is the typical quoted range
- Two to four weeks is common, and seems to be what shops say when they're honest about a queue
- Six to eight weeks for a custom-built piece rather than a recover
Two things about those figures. They almost always mean *once work starts*, not from the day you call. And they assume the fabric is already sitting on the shelf.
Neither assumption usually holds, which is why people who were told two weeks are surprised at week five.
Fabric is usually the delay
The bench work on a straightforward armchair is a couple of days. The reason you wait three weeks is rarely the upholsterer.
Order a fabric that's in stock at a Los Angeles warehouse and it's there in days. Order something a mill makes to order, or a colourway that's run out, and you're waiting six weeks before anybody touches your chair, and the shop can't tell you that until they place the order.
Worse, the shop often cannot tell you at the estimate either. Stock levels move. The fabric that was available when the sample book was printed is a different question from the fabric available on the Tuesday somebody rings the supplier.
This is the single best reason to go and look at fabric in person rather than choosing from a website. 91 of the 185 shops listed here have a showroom or sample books on site. Sitting in one of those with an upholsterer who knows what's actually available this month will save you more time than any other decision you make.
What else pushes it out
Frame work. If the frame needs repair, that's a separate operation with glue that has to cure before anything gets covered. 32 shops here list frame repair and 27 list spring replacement. Neither is unusual, and neither is quick. Re-tying a set of eight-way springs is a day of skilled handwork on its own.
The queue. A one-person workshop with four jobs ahead of yours is four jobs slower than the same workshop in a quiet month. Nobody advertises this. Ask.
Pattern matching. A repeat that has to line up across a sofa back is more cutting, more care and more fabric, and it is bench time rather than waiting time. It rarely adds weeks, but it reliably adds days.
Your own decisions. Shops wait on customers more often than customers realise, a fabric not finally chosen, a deposit not sent, a question not answered. The clock is running on the shop's schedule the whole time.
Getting a straight answer
Ask two questions rather than one:
- How long from the day I drop it off to the day I can collect it?
- Is that assuming the fabric is in stock, and when will you know?
The second question is the one that gets you the real timeline. A shop that answers it precisely is a shop that has thought about your job rather than quoting you a habit.
If you're working to a hard deadline, a dining set for Thanksgiving, a restaurant reopening, say the date out loud at the estimate. Some shops will tell you they can't make it. That's the most useful answer you'll get all week.
The trick for a piece you cannot live without
Split the job.
If the sofa is the only place to sit, ask whether the shop will hold the booking until the fabric physically arrives, then take the piece in. You lose nothing, and instead of six weeks without a sofa you get two.
Not every shop will work this way, because it means scheduling around a delivery date they do not control. It costs nothing to ask, and the answer tells you something about how organised the workshop is.
Pickup and delivery changes the maths
17 of the 185 shops here say pickup and delivery is free, and 15 charge for it. It doesn't shorten the job, but it removes two trips and the problem of fitting a sofa into a car, and where it costs money it is usually less than a van rental.
Browse the shops by city to see what each one takes on, or read what reupholstery actually costs first if you're still deciding whether to go ahead.