We often talk about ‘recovering’ furniture to mean a nice new look for the furniture in a new fabric. But there are a number of ways of achieving this, each being suitable for different kinds or conditions of furniture and at different prices.
The main options are:
•Loose Covers
•Tailored Covers
•Stretch Covers
•Re-Upholstery
•Re-Cover
The reason it's important to know what you are getting is that there are important issues of safety, cost and durability. Unfortunately by being ‘economical with the truth’ an unscrupulous supplier can charge a lot of money for a sub-standard job. As you only see the outer covering of the finished job, you may be none the wiser until something goes wrong.
Loose Covers
The traditional loosely fitting cover, used to be made in a cotton print with a valance finish at the bottom. My Dad always said – ‘the kind of covers the Queen has on her furniture when you watch the Christmas message’ (but probably not these days of polished image!). They are very clearly a Cover, and all look pretty much the same whatever the design of the furniture underneath. They are made to be easily taken off, washed and slipped back on.
Tailored Covers
Invented by my father Richard Vipond who coined the term 'Tailored Covers', these are Covers which have been closely tailored to the original design of the furniture. For instance, the first Covers he made were for Cintique furniture which were seats and backs consisting of complex cushions attached with studs to a frame. The Covers exactly match the original cushions, including back flap and studs, and even the buttoning on the back.
With modern Tailored Covers you can expect a Cover which is closely Tailored to the contours of your furniture and which as far as possible in a Cover, will reflect the main design features of the chair or sofa underneath.You can learn more about Tailored Covers from the link on the Home Page. Unfortunately the term my father coined of ‘Tailored Covers’ is much misused these days with even stretch covers sometimes being passed off as tailored covers.
Stretch Covers
These are Covers made principally from knitted polyester. They may have other yarns woven in such as cotton so that the supplier can say ‘cotton’ but the structure of the cloth is the same.
They used to be made in a set of standard sizes and would stretch enormously to cover a chair etc but the stretch would mean seams appeared all over the place. In more recent years the degree of stretch has been reduced and the fabric designs improved. By cutting the cover more closely to the shape of the furniture they have improved the fit but the covers still rely on the stretch of the fabric.
A very important issue here however is one of safety. When the government introduced the Fire Safety regulations in 1988 stretch covers were still very popular but it was impossible to make them comply with the safety standards of other fabrics. So to protect the industry a compromise was reached whereby stretch covers had to meet a lower standard. Unfortunately at the time nobody thought to require that customers should be made aware that a cover was actually stretch, (and so met a lower standard) or that it should be labelled as such. An unsatisfactory situation which persists to this day, even though large numbers of stretch covers are still being made and sold.
**Important: Comments about the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 (as amended) on this page and on this site are my opinion only, and no liability can be accepted for the information given. Due to it's nature the Regulations and the interpretation of them by Trading Standards are complex, so if any issue is critical to you it is important you consult the regulations themselves or the very useful guide to the regulations published by BERR (formerly the DTI).
Re-Upholstery
This is the full stripping down of your furniture to the springs and frame, and building up with new or re-constituted fillings. When complete, the Re-Upholstered furniture should be as good as the original. (Note however most upholsterers do not polish show-wood surfaces so there is a slight difference - Lynplan however does re-polish wood as part of the service).
We find with most furniture that years in centrally heated homes means the joints deteriorate and that they often need knocking apart and re-setting, so always find out if this is part of the service being offered.
The most important issue however is the word ‘upholstery’. This actually means the fillings, and the way it is fabricated in the chair or sofa to give comfort and support (it doesn’t mean just the covering). Unfortunately either by mistake of design ‘re-cover’ (see below) is often confused with ‘re-upholstery’. There are enormous cost and quality differences between the two. It can take a man at least a day to strip down a traditionally upholstered chair, re-web it, sew in springs, then apply layers of felt etc and stitch in hair and fibre with proper firm stitched edges. You can expect such a re-upholstered chair then to last for many years – in fact many 10’s of years!
Contrast this with Re-Covering, where the cover is simply removed and another cover sewn up and attached in its place. This is probably the most common misrepresentation in the industry, which is why the Association of Master Upholsterers was moved to issue clear guidelines recently. So beware, and ask the key question when being offered re-upholstery: Do you mean Re-Upholstery or Re-Cover?
Re-Cover
This is the removing of the original fabric Cover and replacement with a new one. A layer of fibre (commonly called ‘dacron’) may be added first to smooth out creases. It is particularly suitable when you have furniture in good condition – maybe only a few years old and you have become tired of, or need to replace the Cover, but don't want a Tailored Cover.
We would not recommend re-covering anything more than about 7 years old, as the fillings underneath are probably beginning to deteriorate and before long your nice new cover (which is unlikely to have been cheap!) will start to sag and bag. As mentioned above it is important not to confuse re-cover with re-upholster.
About Lynplan
Lynplan has provided professional reupholstery service for over 60 years! Sofa and chair reupholstery, fitted covers by Lynplan. At Lynplan, we concentrate on service and the quality of our re-upholstery, rather than volume. Our tailored covers using Lynplan fabrics receive a full 90 day money back guarantee and a full three year in-service guarantee. Reupholstery service includes a full 3-year in-service guarantee of workmanship, fillings and covering.
Lynplan are members of the Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers, the premier trade association for Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers in the UK, which vets all members every five years.
(ArticlesBase ID #1201887)
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