Upholstery Suppliers?

[Steve Branam]

Anyone have any opinions or recommendations for upholstery suppliers for slip seats? Any comments on PerfectProductsOnline.com or DIYUpholsterySupply.com? Feel free to PM me.

I need a set of basic tools and small amount of supplies like webbing, rubberized horse hair, tacks, etc. I'm using Don Taylor's 1989 FWW article as my instruction.

[Tom McMahon]

Steve, I tried DIY once, it took almost 6 weeks to get my order and it was screwed up when it came. I use Rockford supply for many things, great, fast service.

[Zach England]

Lee Valley has the basic tools.

[Steve Branam]

I ended up ordering from DIYUpholsterySupply.com, since the person who's plan I was building from told me he uses them. Given one poor review and one good one from a repeat buyer, I hoped the poor experience was the exception. I was quite happy with the results. I ordered on October 1, and the order arrived yesterday and today (some of their items are drop-shipped), so 2 and a half weeks, an acceptable turn around time. The order was fine; one item had been discontinued by their supplier, for which they credited my PayPal account with the refund. They had the best overall selection for small amounts.

I had seen other recommendations for Rochford Supply, but looking at their website they seemed more oriented toward quantity purchases. I'm only building one slip seat for a Queen Anne foot stool at the moment.

You can see that project in progress here: http://www.closegrain.com/2011/10/building-queen-anne-foot-stool.html. I'll have additional postings, including showing the upholstering process, over the next two weeks.

[Zach England]

Where are you guys getting upholstery plans? I have done some re-upholstering, but never built an armature, and am wanting to do an upholstered chair from scratch and need some plans to look at.

[Steve Branam]

I'm just doing a slip seat, which is about as basic as you can get. Just webbing on a frame, with several layers of cloth and padding materials wrapped around and tacked on the underside. I don't know anything about fully upholstered furniture requiring armatures, etc. And the only thing I know about slip seats I saw on Tommy Mac's abbreviated coverage of it, and read in the FWW article I mentioned.

There are some other upholstering articles behind the FWW paywall, including one by Norman Vandal on a Chippendale sofa showing how to build the frame (but not how to do the actual upholstering). Jeffrey Greene's American Furniture of the 18th Century has one exploded view of a Queen Anne easy chair frame, but again nothing on the actual upholstering. These two references might give you enough information for the woodworking part of it.

DIYUpholstering has a series of videos about upholstering a full chair on their website, though I haven't watched them.