Guidelines for your furniture refurbishment.

Whether revamping your furniture to give it a new lease of life or recovering it to fit in with a change of room decoration, refurbishing your furniture is worth the investment.

We can give you advice on how to go about it all. There is a wealth of possibilities to help you decide on the final refurbishment.

A well upholstered piece of furniture adds both comfort and style to a room. However, there are many factors to bear in mind. Where you wish to follow tradition or a more modern look there is a huge amount of fabric and trimmings to choose from.

Consider colour, pattern, texture and just the gut feeling that it would be right for your furniture, your room and you.

Lifestyle

Upholstery is not a quick or inexpensive craft. So, take time to select the type of fabric you want. It needs to add ambience to your room/home.

Functionality is the place to start. For example, dining room chairs will be up for a lot of wear and regular handling. Choosing something that will tolerate a wipe over when accidental food or drink is spilt. A robust heavy duty fabric or canvas would be a sensible choice. Lavish silks will be more suitable for a special sitting room.

Remember to look for the fabric ‘make up’ and care options. For example, avoid stretch fabrics. Patterns that have a large repeat will make it much more expensive as more fabric will be needed to co-ordinate and match. Good fabric shops have experienced customer care people to help you.

Depending on your style of chair it can influence your selection of fabric. Here are a few examples.

Victorian style often has a wide strip with deep buttoning. A drop-in seat normally for some dining room chairs. We had fun with ours by making the fabric the same but the wood frame different. But you could do vice versa.

Chippendale chairs tend to have lots of ‘studs’ incorporated in the design with curved short legs.

Piano stools, blanket boxes and ‘picture back chairs’ give you a wide range colour and prints. Sometimes leaving the wood ‘as is’ or maybe picking up the colours from the fabric and painting the wood frame give an interesting look.

Texture

Texture is a mine field for the less experienced fabric buyer. Be guided by the use that the piece of furniture will get. Smooth fabric with shine, tapestry – Jacquard weaves, cotton, polyester mixes, canvas, and silks are just a few.

Mood

Upholstered furniture can dramatically influence the mood of a room. So, choose fabrics that work well with others in the room. (in your opinion anyway). Alternatively, you can lift or change the mood of a room with 1 or 2 items of furniture with light or dark coloured walls. A dingy room can be uplifted with vibrant colours and contemporary textures.

Quality

Good quality fabrics creates a feeling of ‘sumptuousness’ with velvets or simple floral prints. They compliment furniture frames with fabric that reflects light to lift the spirits with bold colour. Do it right and do the furniture justice it deserves. It is so worth it!

Colour

We are all about colour. It is so important with a need for spontaneity and imagination. Colours that stimulate could be lively buzzing reds and oranges. Calming colours would be blues and greens. It might be silvery to ‘inky’ shades to cobalt.

Successful colour combinations – there is no substitute for following your own instincts. Find pictures from magazines of what you like, art/paintings, fabric samples, colour charts, and paint colour charts. Seek out anything that ‘speaks to you’.

Price

There is no doubt you can get fabulous fabrics very cheaply if you are prepared to shop around. Fabric sales, warehouse sales, end of line or searching ‘online’ are just a few places to start looking. We source our fabrics from around New Zealand. When we travel for our dance competitions, we also have the mission to find fabrics. We are fabric holics!!

Here is the process we use.

Your options;

·         You could send us a few photos of the item and give us an idea of the size for a rough estimate, or

·         Bring your item to us and then we can talk about fabrics, and the style you would like. We have a range of fabrics for you to choose from or you can bring a fabric you have. This is the best option.

NB - The estimate we give at the start of work may change once we have removed the existing covering, we might find that new foam and other repairs are required. In this case, we will contact you to discuss these before work is resumed. We endeavour to keep cost down.

Deliver/Transport

If you live local to us Motueka, Richmond or Nelson we can collect smaller items @ 80 cents per km. Outside these areas it is your responsibility to arrange transport to and from our premises.

For larger items we recommend ‘Man and a Van’ and for items outside of these areas we recommend ‘Conroy’s’ transport nationwide.

Completed item

Once the work on your item is completed, we will contact you with a photograph and arrange a time for collection/delivery. Payment is due before the item is collected/delivered.

Contact:

Jeanette or David: Phone: 03 744 1248: Cell: 021 025 17194

Address: 3 Bennett Street, Motueka 7120 (please call before coming to visit)