The president of the Professional Upholsterers' Association of Minnesota proudly states that she was the fifth woman to graduate from an upholstery curriculum at Minneapolis Technical College in .
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'It was considered a man's field back then,' says Diana Shroyer Guenther, owner of Shroyer Custom Upholstery in Coon Rapids, Minn. She worked one year for the program's third woman graduate before starting her own home-based business. She subsequently worked for a furniture manufacturer, a foam and upholstery company and a restaurant booth manufacturer before her recent semi-retirement that sees her back on her own footing with residential, boat and small commercial jobs.
'When I started in the business, reupholstering cost less or the same as buying new. Now, with the economical lines of furniture, it often costs more than buying new, unless you are comparing it to upper-end, quality furniture lines,' Guenther says. 'The clients we have know the value of better-built furniture or are reupholstering furniture that has sentimental value.'
Chip Lueck, owner of Recovery Room in Panama City Beach, Fla., started in the upholstery industry a year after Guenther and says his business'with a team of eight upholsterers'continues to evolve.
'I gave up automotive upholstery three years ago, because I can't find employees to do it. I gave up $200,000 a year in gross receipts,' he says, noting that the employee he had working on automotive upholstery left for a better-paying job with a local dealership.
Due to the same difficulty in finding qualified workers, Lueck also abandoned the furniture upholstery market, though he occasionally does porch and patio furniture cushions.
'At one time, I was full service,' he says, estimating his markets were 65 percent marine, 10 percent each automotive and furniture, and 15 percent awnings. These days, awnings account for 50 percent of his business.
'I can transition [between markets], because I am trained in all of it, but my employees are not,' says Lueck, who designates two employees for marine canvas, two for boat seats and covers, two for awning frames and one for awning covers. 'I have one person who couldn't make a cushion for a piece of furniture to save his life, but he can do some of the most complex marine canvas in the world.'
Branching out
Phillip Russell, president of PCR Restorations and Lehr Awning Co., has been in the upholstery industry 29 years'starting in a 100-square-foot basement space and now running a 16,000-square-foot operation with 13 employees.
'Before the recession, we did $1.4 million a year. From to , we got down to $800,000. Now we are back up to a million a year: $300,000 in upholstery, $80,000 to $100,000 in marine (upholstery and houseboat canopies and enclosures) and the rest in awnings,' Russell says. 'PCR's niche is restaurant upholstery. We take one chair, make a pattern, and do 200 chairs.'
He has found a lucrative market in restaurant chains such as Applebee's, Red Lobster and Olive Garden (he also does awnings for the latter). According to Russell, before the recession, Applebee's refreshed its stores every five years.
'I would go to a store, pull it out, put a new one in, take that chair back to the shop, put new fabric on, and take it to the next store,' he says, adding that he also was upholstering seats and walls for another dining chain (since closed) that was opening three venues every four months. From its base in Mansfield, Ohio, PCR'with a fleet of seven trailers, five pickups and three vans'has traveled to jobs as far north as Michigan and as far south as Florida.
'We live in a small town of 30,000, so we travel anywhere they want us to if we can make it profitable,' Russell says.
'If you have two booths ripped, I can't drive 200 miles for $120; so I find five or six companies that need our business,' he notes, explaining that he calls ahead to accounts in an area where he has one job to see what work they might have for him. His crew may service eight or nine restaurants in a day.
PCR's other markets include school bus seats, gyms, houseboats and residential furniture.
'We don't do a lot of furniture, because you can buy a new La-Z-Boy recliner as cheaply as I can re-cover your old one,' Russell says. 'Also, it's too time-consuming. You can't pay a good wage and redo a couch unless you are set up to do that.'
In a similar vein, the owner of Sewline Upholstery Ltd. in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada, draws the line at the time-consuming job of convertible car tops.
'I have one service bay for a vehicle or boat, so I have to say no to that service until I go to a larger building,' Robert Burkart says. What he will do runs the gamut from furniture, automobiles and boats to gazebos and padded covers to protect windshields of agricultural and construction equipment during transportation.
At the end of , just shy of his now 27 years in the business, Burkart entered into a contractual relationship with two women in their 60s to expand Sewline's offerings to draperies and blinds. Furniture, however, remains the company's foremost market'a factor that Burkart attributes to people wanting more durability than the three-to-five-year life of department store furniture.
But the most profitable segment of Sewline's markets is awnings and shade screens, which the company does not make but installs. On the other end of the scale, automotive work generates the least net income for the company.
'It takes 20 to 40 hours to do a hot rod,' Burkart says. 'As soon as you peel everything apart, you see problems that were not visible.'
Division of labor
Leo Pohlmann founded Uncharted Marine Canvas 28 years ago; 14 years ago he expanded his services to include marine upholstery, which now accounts for half of the Gulf Breeze, Fla.-based company's business.
'Our primary upholsterer came to us by way of Houston, Texas. He has experience in the automobile custom upholstery industry, with no background in marine upholstery,' Pohlmann says. He notes that, while the techniques for auto, home and marine upholstery have a lot in common, the latter requires recognizing that the product will be exposed to the elements.
'All of our sewers are cross-trained in sewing boat canvas and upholstery,' he says. 'The most difficult transition is that interior upholstery remains clean, whereas with marine canvas, you are working with wet, dirty, moldy materials that you must tear apart before you can begin the re-covering process.'
At Sewline, employees work across all fields, but in discrete workspaces.
'I have one area for industrial and automotive. For furniture, the sewing machine has to be very clean,' Burkart says. 'We may only do furniture one week. Some jobs focus on car seats, but that is greasy. We watch very carefully that everything gets covered up.'
'We try to keep upholstery work in a separate area than boat enclosure work for obvious messy reasons,' says Rick Wisotzkey, one of two canvas technicians at Short's Marine in Millsboro, Del. 'And we try to keep new boat sales work separate from used work. We also try to keep things separated by job'for example, bimini tops and enclosures from pontoon boat covers and furniture covers, keeping one employee in a fast groove of doing repetitive work and another in the slower/not-the-same-all-the-time jobs. That way, an individual doesn't have to keep switching gears.'
At the age of 12, Wisotzkey began learning about automobile work in his father's shop. Today, in addition to working at Short's Marine, he maintains a shop in his house for automobiles. Per job, cars are more profitable than boats because the smaller pool of skilled labor available to perform custom car interiors brings with it the ability to charge a premium, he says. However, by volume, Short's Marine makes more money on boat jobs.
While the crossover of skills for different upholstery products is 'very liquid,' Wisotzkey says, 'the lack of knowledge in an area can create some less desirable outcomes.'
Sand Sea and Air Interiors Inc. of San Juan, Puerto Rico, primarily works on seating for yacht interiors and the hospitality industry, but also has upholstered wall panels for residential and commercial settings, and last year built and upholstered custom beds. Owner Terri Madden notes that marine upholstery has been her most profitable market in due to 'mega yachts' coming to San Juan for refits.
'It is a specialized market for high-quality repairs or replacements with a tight turnaround,' she says. 'And there is little resistance to pricing for custom requests.'
On the flip side, aviation is her least-profitable market, accounting for less than 5 percent of sales.
'Recordkeeping is a trail of paperwork, with annual inspections for compliance and evolving forms and regulations,' Madden says.
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As Shroyer Customer Upholstery's Guenther notes, 'Upholstery businesses mostly market according to their skills. Some shops do it all. Some won't do recliners or hide-a-beds because of the weight and mechanics. Some shops prefer not to work with vinyl or leather. And some markets require special equipment that would be an additional investment. Yet some businesses have employees with the knowledge and skills needed across markets. The barriers are the skills to use the more difficult materials or not wanting to invest in the equipment required.'
Lueck finds a different barrier troubling.
'The biggest problem this industry faces over the next 10 to 15 years is a lack of young people coming along,' he says. 'I don't have the qualified workers to do the
work I used to do. I can't personally do it all. If it sounds like I am crying the blues, I am. It's a huge issue.'
Janice Kleinschmidt is a writer and magazine editor based in San Diego, Calif.
If you're thinking of setting up as an upholsterer will you focus on antique or modern furniture? Our guide gives you all the essentials for starting up and running your upholstery business.
As a first step, it is a good idea to find out whether there appears to be enough demand for your upholstery business. This can very much depend on the range of upholstery services that you plan to offer, the distance you're prepared to travel, your skills and expertise. You might intend to concentrate on offering traditional, craft upholstery services to customers such as antique dealers and restorers, stately homes, the National Trust and, of course, members of the public who want their antique furniture refurbished. Or you might decide to focus on modern upholstery methods and offer services to local furniture manufacturers or trade customers such as pubs and restaurants that need to reupholster their seating.
You might be planning to offer such a specialist service - for example, reupholstering a particular type of antique (those from a certain country or period, for example), or boat and motorhome interiors - that you attract customers from all over the UK and possibly even beyond.
Whichever type of upholstery work you plan to offer it is worth checking out your local area to see how many competitors you are likely to have. A look at the Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers (AMUSF) member directory or a browse on Yell.com and other similar online or print directories will give you an idea of the number of upholsterers who are already operating in your area. Don't forget that some antique dealers and antique restorers also offer upholstery services.
Have a good look at existing upholsterers to establish:
It's very important to do all you can to make sure that enough customers choose your upholstery business rather than existing firms. Your market research might indicate that there is a gap in the market you can fill. For example, perhaps there are no local businesses that are members of the AMUSF and that offer a top quality, traditional service. Or maybe a recently opened marina would give you the opportunity to offer upholstery services to boat owners and boat builders.
You might consider going to local antiques fairs or markets and asking dealers and restorers who are exhibiting whether they would be interested in your services. It's also worth approaching businesses such as furniture makers or interior designers to find out whether there are any services they would be interested in. Don't forget to give everyone you speak to a business card or a printed brochure if you have one.
Depending on the nature of your business, your customers may be members of the public or local businesses and organisations, or a mix of both.
Members of the public might include anyone who wants an antique or modern item of upholstered furniture refurbished or who wants soft furnishings like curtains or blinds made up. Other private customers might want items such as motorbike, classic car, boat, caravan or motorhome seating reupholstered or repaired.
Your trade or business customers might include:
In some cases, you might need to work at your customer's premises (or other location like a boat yard) rather than in your own workshop. Don't forget to take your travelling - and possibly subsistence - expenses into account when giving customers an estimate of the cost of the work.
When you undertake a commission it's important to make sure that customers realise that upholstery work is labour intensive and that a job can take some time to complete. If your customers are prepared for this they will put less pressure on you to finish the work quickly. Try to make a realistic estimate of when you will finish the job and stick to this wherever possible.
You may be prepared to offer your trade customers a discount, particularly if they put a lot of work your way. This is something that you will agree with individual customers.
There are several different upholstery services you might offer, including:
Generally, upholsterers provide customers with an estimate of the cost of the upholstery work they want done. These estimates take into account the time the job will take and the cost of the upholstery materials and fabrics that will be used. These estimates are normally provided free of charge.
As well as upholstery services there are a number of other services you might decide to offer your customers, such as:
Whichever services you propose to offer, it's vital that your potential customers are aware of your business. If you plan to offer traditional upholstery services to antique dealers and restorers make sure that as many as possible are sent some promotional material. If you are a member of the Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers (AMUSF) your contact details will be included in the AMUSF online directory.
It would be useful to include some photographs of the type of work that you do in your brochure and on your website or blog. You could consider including some narrative describing what the work involves and the materials you use as well as photos taken at different stages so that potential customers fully appreciate the skill, time and effort required.
If you encourage members of the public to call in to your workshop having an attractive display of your work could be important. Make sure the items highlight your professional skills and that they are kept clean, with the fabrics protected from fading.
The work you undertake might include:
To be able to offer both traditional and modern upholstery services you will need to be able to work with a range of different upholstery fabrics, including leather, and you will need various different specialist tools, such as:
The materials you are likely to work with include:
Some customers may supply the upholstery fabric themselves.
Getting the price right is very important. It's essential to make sure that the difference between the amount you spend on upholstery materials and the price you charge your customers is enough to cover all of your operating costs, including your own drawings.
Matters to take into account include:
You might decide to buy an existing farm supply business rather than start your own venture from scratch. Buying a going concern can mean that the products, customers, regular sales, staff, premises and equipment are already in place.
But buying a business can be a hazardous, expensive process unless you have the right skills and experience on your team, including legal and financial know-how. Establish the genuine trading and financial position, so that the price you pay for the business is not too high.
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