Reasons to Reupholster

House Doctor | Gary Dymski

May 9, 2002

You might want to think again about tossing out that old sofa or chair, the one you've had for 20 years. When it comes to furniture, old usually is a good sign.

Take it from Sandy Catalano, whose family has been reupholstering and rebuilding furniture for more than 55 years. "When people call us about reupholstering a piece, the first thing we ask is, 'How old is it?'" says Catalano, an owner of CLS Custom Upholsterers in Bohemia. "What keeps us in business is older furniture; the older a piece is, the better it is."

In today's disposable society, who considers reupholstering furniture? Buying new is the way customers go. But that doesn't mean it's the right way to go.

"Think of it this way," says Jimmy Catalano, one of three Catalano brothers who runs CLS. "A moderately priced piece of furniture 20 years ago is, by today's standards of materials and construction, a custom piece today."

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"That's true," says Tyler Sinclair, who, with his wife, Susan, has operated Sinclair's Upholstery in Hampton Bays since 1979. "Older pieces have coil springs and hardwood frames that are doweled and glued; today's pieces have rubber straps or zig-zag coils instead of spring coils, and staples are used on frames."

There are a few tricks to determining whether your piece is a candidate for reupholstering, experts say. First, its weight. "If your sofa or chair is heavy, it probably is well-constructed," Jimmy Catalano says. "Another sign is the bottom. If it's a hard bottom, not a hollow bottom covered by a piece of fabric screening, then the piece probably has coil springs."

Reupholstering a piece of furniture is not inexpensive; a sofa can run from $1,000 to $2,000, depending on the cost of fabric and other decorative details such as buttons, tufting and skirts. Club chairs and wingback chairs can be about half as much.

Price includes pickup and delivery, and, in most cases, some rebuilding of the frame and installation of new springs and padding. But there are variables here, too. Down padding, for example, over spring coils is more expensive than foam padding.

The real advantage to reupholstering is choice ... choice of fabric, construction and detail. Another major reason for reupholstering is purely sentimental; it's satisfying to restore a piece that has been in the family for years.

CLS has been a family operation since 1945, when Mike Catalano opened a small upholstery shop in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. He moved to Mineola in the 1960s and to Bohemia in 1981. Along the way, his sons, Sandy, Jimmy and Raymond, took on larger roles in the operation of the company. Mike, 86, still visits the shop daily, and his grandsons - Sandy's sons - Mike and Pat, have joined the business.

The company has expanded, too. It now has its own line of fabrics, restores and repairs furniture, builds some of its own furniture and works with another company that builds custom pieces. It also has a Web site, www.clsupholsterers.com.

Still, CLS' biggest role is reupholstering, including making custom slipcovers. One thing a good upholstery company won't do is work on inexpensive pieces. "We tell people it probably doesn't make much sense," Sandy Catalano says. The piece probably wouldn't hold up, and it would be cheaper to buy a new piece."

The most difficult part of the business, however, might be convincing people about the value in their old furniture. "Anything built in the last eight to 20 years, it's probably of better quality" than more recent pieces, Sandy Catalano says.

"And something from the 1940s or 1950s, generally those are really, really well-built pieces," Jimmy Catalano says.

Price can be another obstacle. "I remember telling one woman that to reupholster a bedroom chair would be $300," Sinclair says.

"She says, 'Really, but it only cost me $125.'

"So I ask her, 'When did you buy it?'

"She says, 'About 1963 or '64.'

"I had to tell her that back then, $125 was like $300 or $400 today. She didn't realize she had a well-made piece of furniture that was worth reupholstering."