What is Upholstered Furniture?
Upholstery is the sum total of all the materials used to create soft chair coverings, whether those chairs are camelback sofas, club chairs, the chairs you’ll find in cinemas or the chairs in your car or boat. Many people harbour the impression that upholstery begins and ends with the fabric they see and sit on. Not so.
Upholstery comprises multiple layers, and although the material used in the different layers of upholstery will vary, the layers themselves and their functions remain more or less constant and include:
- Springs
- Felt pad
- Foam core
- Additional cushioning
- Exterior fabric
What is Upholstery Fabric and How to Choose the Right One
You cannot use just any old fabric to upholster a chair. Even fabric employed to make heavy drapery is not going to cut it as furniture upholstery. You might be able to use it on throw pillows but not on the main body of the chair. It simply will not hold up.
Upholstery fabric is thicker and heavier than the fabric used for clothes, drapes, tablecloths and pillow covers. Upholstery fabrics may be made of natural fibres like cotton, linen, wool or silk, synthetic fibres such as acetate, olefin or acrylic or some combination of the two types of material. In addition, most upholstery fabric is backed with another fabric to provide stability and added durability to the finished product.
Being robust in nature, upholstery fabric is (relatively) abrasion resistant and easy to maintain. At the same time, care is taken to ensure the finished product is aesthetically pleasing in terms of both form and face. Here are a few things to consider when choosing an external fabric.
Shape
What looks good on a round, curvy piece of furniture may not necessarily work on a piece with more modest cushioning. Solid colour fabric is often recommended for rounded chairs and sofas since busy patterns may create a visual jumble that undermines the perception of the chair as soft and comfy.
Size
For a large sofa, it is often wise to go with a solid neutral colour fabric. You can always inject a bit of visual pizzazz into the room with smaller pieces.
Other furniture in the room
A busy pattern on a large sofa would create visual dissonance in a room and make matching other pieces with the sofa difficult, if not impossible.
Contact Jerome Shorter
What is upholstery? It is that which makes your furniture pleasing to the eye of the beholder and the sitter. If the time has come to reupholster your furniture, contact Jerome Shorter.
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