Interior design focuses on beauty and functionality, but it also has meaning. Whether it’s a hand-carved armchair found at a Paris flea market, your grandmother’s well-loved settee, or an heirloom dining bench that’s seen decades of family dinners, preserving antique furniture is one way we infuse our clients’ interiors with meaning.
Custom upholstery allows us to honor the stories these pieces tell while elevating comfort, improving functionality, and altering aesthetics to meet today’s needs. It might seem like simply swapping linen for velvet or boucle, but this process is also dedicated to restoring integrity, enhancing usability, and ensuring that these cherished pieces continue to be loved for years to come.
In this Journal post, we’re sharing our design team’s perspective on reviving vintage and antique furnishings. You’ll learn what can be reupholstered, what the process actually looks like, and why working with an experienced design team can help you make the most of the past while designing for the future.
What Are Your Options When Reupholstering Custom Furniture?
From the upper left: Edwardian Kidney Shaped Stool from 1stDibs, French Vintage Brass Curule Stool from 1stDibs, Edwardian Mahogany and Inlaid Stool from 1stDibs, Vintage Danish Oak Stool with Lambskin, ca 1900s from 1stDibs, and Austrian Antique Stool from 1stDibs
When a beloved piece begins showing its age (or no longer suits your space), reupholstering can bring it back to life. However, not all restoration paths are created equal. Whether your goal is to preserve a family heirloom or transform a vintage piece into something absolutely perfect, the devil is in the details.
DIY Restoration is Tempting… But Often Risky
We understand the appeal of a do-it-yourself upholstery project and if you want to stitch slipcovers for an older sofa, be our guest. With an abundance of online tutorials and fabric shops mere clicks away, reupholstering an antique piece can seem approachable. Sadly, DIY often leads to disappointment or worse, irreversible damage.
Antique and heirloom furniture are quite dissimilar from the commercial pieces found in today’s stores. Springs may be hand-tied, padding may be natural horsehair or cotton, and frames might be delicate or unbalanced from years of use. Without the right tools and knowledge, DIY upholstery can weaken the structure, compromise comfort, and diminish the historical value of your piece.
In our experience, DIY is best reserved for practice pieces or purely decorative finds.
Working with an Upholstery or Custom Furniture Company is Your Best Bet
For straightforward updates like replacing worn-out fabric or cushions, working with a professional upholsterer can be the right choice. However, working solely with an upholsterer might not be enough to fully integrate a restored piece into your home.
Many upholsterers work from client direction alone. That means you’ll need to source your own fabrics, select finishes, and understand scale and proportion in context. If your goal exceeds a simple fabric swap, additional design support may be necessary. It’s time you visit a design firm!
Collaborating with a Design Team Makes the Most of Your Piece
For pieces that are structurally complex, sentimentally significant, or central to a room’s design, custom upholstery is best left to a design firm with strong furniture-maker relationships. At Laura U Design Collective, we often work with companies like House + Town to ensure our client’s vision is captured and quality is controlled.
Our team begins by evaluating the piece’s condition and history, then collaborates on fabric selections, finishes, and functional updates that align with your home’s overall design. A designer from our firm will coordinate directly with upholsterers and craftspeople to ensure every stitch and seam is intentional. These pieces are uniquely yours; they should stay that way!
What Can Be Reupholstered?
- Armchairs and club chairs
- Dining chairs (seats and full backs)
- Sofas, sectionals, and settees
- Ottomans and benches
- Headboards and bed frames
- Chaise lounges
- Vanity stools and accent chairs
- Cushions and window seats
- Antique frames with spring or horsehair construction
- Heirloom or custom-built pieces with sentimental value
What Happens During the Custom Upholstery Process?
If you are working with an antique or vintage piece, reupholstering rarely means simply wrapping new fabric around an old frame. When approached appropriately, the process is part preservation, part reinvention.
Of course, our designers don’t handle every step of the custom upholstery process, but we stay as involved as we can while respecting the skill, experience, and expertise of the craftspeople we work with. Below is a simplified version of what you might expect when reupholstering antique sofas, armchairs, stools, ottomans, and more.
Step One: Evaluate the Existing Structure
The first step is assessing whether the piece is worth reupholstering. An expert will inspect the condition of the frame, joints, support system, and existing padding. Is the frame hardwood? Are the joinery techniques sound? These details determine whether reupholstery is advisable—or even possible.
Step Two: Define the Design Direction
Next, we collaborate with you on the aesthetic vision. Is your goal to stay true to the original style or reinterpret the piece for a more modern setting? We’ll discuss intended use, surrounding furnishings, and overall room function to guide decisions around color, fabric type, texture, size, and proportion.
Step Three: Source the Right Materials
We often turn to trusted vendors and designers like SBI Fine Fabric Finishing, Pierre Frey, Pindler, Designers Guild, and others when selecting upholstery materials that will be both durable and beautiful. Whether you seek a high-performance fabric for a high-traffic area or a rich velvet that closely resembles the piece’s original textile, material selection is always personalized to you and your furnishings.
Step Four: Rebuild and Reinforce
Before any new fabric is applied, the piece is disassembled, repaired, and rebuilt if needed. That might involve tightening joints, replacing springs, refreshing cushion fill, or even restoring wood elements. Structural integrity is key to safety and longevity, so this step is often necessary when working with antique or vintage pieces.
Step Five: Upholster and Finish
Once the structural work is complete, fabric is cut, sewn, and applied to your piece. Trims, nailheads, welting, and other design details are applied last, followed by a final inspection. Then, the piece finds its new place in your home!
Why Working with a Design Team Matters
When working with antique or vintage pieces, the furniture reupholstery process is as much about intention as it is about execution. While a skilled upholsterer can beautifully revive a piece, a design firm ensures that it aligns seamlessly with your space, your lifestyle, and your overall vision.
At Laura U Design Collective, we approach every project through a holistic lens. Our job isn’t to help you choose a fabric; rather, it’s to ensure that each piece feels like it belongs in your home. That means assessing placement, scale, color story, and how the piece functions alongside your other furnishings.
The Benefits of a Collaborative Approach
Working with a design team gives you access to curated expertise, trusted vendors, talented craftspeople, and problem-solving support from beginning to end. We guide you through fabric selection, finish options, and customization details you might not know to consider on your own.
We partner with upholsterers and furniture makers whose quality and consistency we trust so you don’t have to start from scratch. A beautiful chair deserves a beautiful home. We make sure the finished piece complements your space, style, and story. From modifying dimensions to accommodating modern use, we offer solutions that go beyond upholstery alone.
Reupholstering your sofa or stool might feel like a minor update, but it’s actually a big design opportunity. With the right design team, even the most timeworn furniture can become a stunning showpiece once more.
