Reupholstering furniture: when it's worth it and who to hire

What upholstery work involves

The job scales enormously with the piece. Recovering a drop-in dining chair seat is about an hour's work; a full sofa strip-back is days of labour plus many metres of fabric. In between sit repairs — re-stitching seams, replacing foam cushion inserts, fixing springs or webbing — which cost a fraction of a full reupholstery and are often all a well-made piece actually needs.

Full reupholstery means stripping the piece back to the frame, repairing or replacing foam, webbing and springs, and covering it fresh. It makes financial sense on solid hardwood frames, antiques and sentimental pieces, where you're paying to keep something worth keeping. On budget furniture, replacement is frequently cheaper than the labour to rebuild it.

Leather is its own thing — specialist skills and dearer material lift the whole quote — and the fabric choice matters more than people expect. Upholstery-rated fabric with a decent rub count survives daily use; dressmaking fabric on a couch wears out fast, undoing the whole job.

How the cost works

The band on this page runs from small repairs at the low end to a full sofa reupholstery at the top. The estimate here adjusts for the piece size and whether you want a repair or a full strip-back, but fabric is the wildcard — it can run from modest to several times that per metre, and a sofa can swallow twelve to eighteen metres.

That's why the most useful thing to ask for is the fabric metreage in the quote. With that number you can price fabric options fairly and see how much of the total is labour versus material — and decide whether a repair, rather than a full reupholster, gets you most of the way for far less.

Choosing the right upholsterer

Upholstery is an unlicensed craft, so evidence is your guide. Ask to see finished pieces and look at the tightness of the covering, the crispness of piping and how neatly patterns are matched across cushions and arms — that's where a skilled upholsterer separates from a rough one.

A good upholsterer is honest about whether a piece is worth doing. If the frame's gone, they'll tell you replacement makes more sense rather than taking your money for a rebuild that won't last. They'll also talk fabric durability — rub counts, suitability for your household — rather than just showing you colours, because the wrong fabric fails long before the workmanship does.

Mistakes to avoid

Upholstery regrets are usually about spending good money on the wrong piece, or the wrong fabric on the right one.

• Reupholstering budget furniture where replacement would cost less than the labour
• Choosing dressmaking fabric over upholstery-rated fabric, which wears out fast
• Paying for a full strip-back when a repair to foam, springs or seams would do
• Not asking for the fabric metreage, so you can't price your own fabric options fairly
• Ignoring hidden frame and webbing damage that surfaces once the piece is stripped
• Judging on price alone rather than the neatness of an upholsterer's past work