The Upholstery Shop: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. I replaced the detachable cushions on 8 dining rooms chairs. They were clean and in reasonably good condition but I wanted an updated look. The process from start to finish took more than 5 months. A few thoughts on my recent experience:
The Good: A great webpage with testimonials about craftsmanship, quality and cautions about mask wearing to protect everyone's health. They offer a great selection of fabrics and a helpful zoom meeting consultation followed by fabric samples. The Bad: Despite a promise not to have client furniture for more than 4 weeks and careful pickups and deliveries; they kept my chairs from late May until early August and Mike interacted with us without a mask. Later he called to let us know he tested Covid positive. After we finally got our chairs and cushions, we saw the following defects: i.e. The Ugly. (1) Velcro straps were sewn too far into the center of the cushion to wrap around the upright posts of the chairs; (2) The Zipper was not concealed by a material flap like our old cushions and contrasted with, rather than matched, the color of the upholstery material making it very prominent; (3) The material was frayed near the edge on two cushions; (4) The new foam inserts were not cut properly to fully fill out the cushions; (5) Our original cushions were not returned. Wanting to limit our interactions with Mike; we wrote asking the shop to fix only the first, functional problem, deciding we could fix or ignore the cosmetic flaws. To her credit, Heather seemed genuinely surprised by the poor workmanship and promised to reposition the Velcro straps. When we returned the cushions for repair, I immediately regretted paying earlier, in full, by check. Mike began to argue that they could not fix this obvious defect. He also stated that he could not return our old cushions because they had been destroyed. While I retreated to the car before I exploded, my husband patiently pointed out to him how the Velcro tabs could be relocated. He relented and several weeks later we finally got our new cushions. They look .... O.K. I really wish I had not relied on the snazzy website pix and testimonials and chosen an upholsterer I knew. read more