Bench Reupholstery

Nothing holds up the middle of a bench.

A sofa seat is cushions on a sprung deck inside a frame. A bench is one long top on a rim of timber — and between the ends, there is nothing underneath it at all.

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Collect · Restore · Deliver

Made to your finish

Color, welt, stitch and button pattern chosen per bench.

Collected and returned

Pickup and delivery across New York and the surrounding counties.

Materials sourced to use

Contract-weight hides and fabrics picked for how the bench is sat on.

Homes and premises

Entryways and bedrooms, lobbies, restaurants and waiting rooms.

Bench reupholstery and restoration

Underneath, a bench is mostly air.

Antique, modern, residential or commercial — the work starts in the same place. We take the cover off and look at what is carrying the top, because on a bench that is usually the thing that failed.

A cover is cut, sewn and pulled over a structure. Get the structure right while the piece is open and the covering lasts. Skip it and the new leather goes back over the same dip. That is the whole argument for doing bench reupholstery deck-first.

Full hide rolled out on a cutting table before bench panels are cut

Bench cover panel being machine stitched on a walking-foot machine

Leather hide laid flat on a bench ready for the top panel to be cut

Common bench problems

You are not looking at stretched leather.

Two different things get called the same thing. A cover relaxes everywhere at once. A deck fails in one place — the place with nothing under it.

Bench reupholstery: brown bench leather crazed into a dense network of surface cracks — Cracked surface

Grey bench leather opened along a stitched seam where two panels meet — Split seam

Brown bench corner with the seam stitching failed and the panel edges pulled apart — Burst corner seam

Brown bench edge where the topstitch has given way along the welt — Failed edge stitch

Dark brown bench corner split open at the junction of three panels — Corner split

Brown bench leather with deep set creases and a pale scuff across the seat — Creasing and scuffing

Brown bench leather rubbed thin either side of a long seam — Worn seam line

Dark brown bench corner worn pale along the top edge — Worn corner

Taupe bench corner with the finish thinned across the raised edge — Surface wear

Black leather bench corner with the cover loose and rippling above the frame — Slack cover

Before and after

One long panel shows everything.

A bench top is a single uninterrupted surface. There is no cushion line, no back and no arm to break it up, so every mark sits on the one plane you look straight down at.

Cream deep-buttoned bench, before and after: grey-brown soiling through the buttoning, then an even cream surface — Before — Soiling worked deep into the buttoning

After — Surface cleaned, buttons and welt intact

Olive green bench, before and after: a bloomed and abraded top, then an even deep olive surface — Before — Bloom and abrasion across the top

Bench top, before and after: a crazed and flaking dark finish, then a smooth cognac surface — Before — Finish crazed and flaking away

After — Stripped back and refinished in cognac

Illustrative pairs: fault types and finished condition.

What the work covers

Repair the top, or rebuild what holds it.

Most benches need one or two of these, not all ten. The quote names which.

The dividing line is whether the damage is in the finish or in the panel. Color loss, light crazing and a scuffed edge sit in the finish, and a finish can be rebuilt on the bench itself. A split seam, a burst corner or leather worn thin enough to see light through it is the panel, and a panel is replaced or the top is recovered.

Bench reupholstery is the second answer, and it is the one worth taking when the deck underneath needs attention anyway. Doing both at once costs one strip-down instead of two.

Applicator laying pigment into a black bench seat during color restoration — Color restoration

Dark brown bench leather seam rebuilt where two panels meet — Seam repair

Brown bench edge with the welt seam running along the top face — Edge and welt work

Black bench corner reformed over the frame edge — Corner rebuild

Cream bench corner panel sitting tight on a walnut frame — Panel replacement

Charcoal bench recovered over a black metal frame — Full recover

Brown bench leather drawn into a diamond buttoned pattern — Tufting and buttoning

Brown bench on tapered wooden legs with the frame squared up — Frame and leg work

Cream bench cleaned back to an even tone on dark wood legs — Cleaning and conditioning

Beige bench on a light wood frame finished with a protective topcoat — Protection

Benches we restore

Three of these cannot sag.

A waterfall bench, a box bench and a built-in window seat all carry their top on a closed base or on the joinery around them. Everything else on this row spans open air between its legs — and that span is the part that tires.

Brown leather waterfall bench with the cover running unbroken to the floor — Waterfall bench

Taupe leather bench on a crossed wooden X-frame base — X-leg bench

Long black bench deep-buttoned across the top on dark wood legs — Tufted bench

Black leather entryway bench on walnut tapered legs — Entryway bench

Taupe leather bench with an open timber shelf beneath the seat — Storage bench

Cream button-tufted end-of-bed bench on dark tapered legs — End-of-bed bench

Pale cushion fitted into a built-in window seat below a panelled bay — Window seat

Cream box bench with a solid closed base and a lift-off top — Box bench

Cognac leather dining bench on a slim black metal base — Dining bench

Long cognac backless bench on a dark metal frame — Backless bench

Grey leather banquette bench with a low back on a wooden frame — Banquette bench

Grey leather waiting bench divided into three seats with a low back — Waiting bench

Materials

What goes back on top.

A bench takes its wear in one narrow strip down the middle of the top. That decides the covering more than the room does.

Full-grain leather surface with the natural grain left uncorrected — Full-grain leather

Top-grain leather with a lightly corrected and evened surface — Top-grain leather

Charcoal commercial upholstery vinyl in a contract weight — Commercial vinyl

Cross section of bonded leather showing the backing beneath the surface film — Bonded and faux

Green upholstery velvet swatch with the pile running to one side — Velvet

Taupe bouclé upholstery fabric with a looped nubbed surface — Bouclé

Linen blend upholstery swatch with a visible open weave — Linen blend

Performance upholstery fabric swatch rated for heavy contract use — Performance fabric

Grade decides how a bench top wears, not the label on it. Tanneries like Horween publish how a full-grain hide is finished, and contract mills like Designtex publish the rub counts a seat is rated to.

The order of work

The deck gets fixed while the bench is open.

It is the only point at which anyone can reach it. Once the cover is back on, the span underneath is sealed in for another decade.

01
Inspect
Sight the top and find the low point
02
Strip
Cover and staples off, deck exposed
03
Open up
Frame bare and the span visible
04
Tighten
Joints re-glued and pulled square
05
Re-deck
The span bridged and re-tensioned
06
Refoam
Collapsed core out, new block in
07
Select
Hide chosen and cut to the panels
08
Sew
Panels machined and welts set
09
Fit
Cover pulled on, buttons drawn
10
Check
Sighted along the top one last time

Options

Decisions you make once.

Rolls of leather, vinyl and fabric lined up for color selection — Color

Piped welt running along the edge of a leather cushion — Piping and welt

Brown bench welt with a contrast topstitch worked along the edge — Topstitching

Diamond button tufting drawn into taupe velvet — Tufting

Row of antique brass nailheads set along black leather — Nailheads

Foam block cut to size before it goes into a cushion insert — Foam firmness

Bench frame leg and stretcher stripped ready for refinishing — Leg refinishing

Residential

At home.

Entryways, bedrooms and living rooms, where a bench is sat on hard for ten seconds at a time and then left alone.

Greige leather bench set against a curtained wall in a living room — Living rooms

Navy bench standing across the foot of a made bed — Bedrooms

Cushioned window seat curving around a bay window — Window seats

Cream buttoned bench on an oak frame in a guest room — Guest rooms

Commercial

On premises.

Lobbies, restaurants, offices and waiting rooms, where the same bench takes a few hundred people a week and cannot be out of service long.

Long tan leather bench seat in a hotel lobby lounge — Lobbies

Black channelled bench beside a restaurant host stand — Restaurants

Green built-in bench running along an office window wall — Offices

Run of linked blue vinyl seats along a waiting room wall — Waiting rooms

Straight answers

Bench reupholstery, asked and answered.

How much does bench reupholstery cost?

It depends on the length of the top, the covering and whether the deck under it has to be rebuilt. Two photos give us enough to quote: one along the top from the end, one of the underside. Send them here and you get a written figure back.

How long does the bench stay with you?

Most benches are a few days once they are in the workshop. A bench that needs the deck rebuilt and new foam takes longer than a straight recover, because the frame has to be sound before anything goes back over it.

Do you collect and deliver?

Yes, across New York. Fixed seating that cannot be lifted is a different job. If a bench is built into the wall or runs as banquette seating, that work is covered on booth and banquette reupholstery.

Can you match the leather I already have?

We can get very close on color and close on grain, and on a bench it usually does not matter, because the top is recovered as one piece. Matching becomes the hard part only when a single panel is being replaced.

My bench has gone soft in the middle. Is that the cover?

Almost never. A cover relaxes evenly across the whole top. Slack in one place, in the middle, is the deck under it giving way. Recovering alone hands the bench back bowed in new leather.

Do you work on seat cushions and pads on their own?

Yes. If the frame is sound and only the cushion has gone, that is handled on seat cushions and pads.

Service area

Where we collect from.

Manhattan
Brooklyn
Queens
The Bronx
Staten Island
Westchester
Long Island
New Jersey

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Cream channel-tufted bench on dark tapered legs in a bright panelled room

Bench Reupholstery

Kneel at one end. That is the photo we need.

Sight along the top like a plank and the dip shows itself. Send that, plus one of the underside, and you get a written quote back.

Get a quote → (347) 310-7483