CLEANING VINTAGE FURNITURE

[olive bleu]

I need to buy a new sofa. In fact I will probably be , over the next year,purchasing a new sofa and some new arm chairs. I have never before bought vintage "soft" furniture,...lots of tables, dressers, bookshelves etc, but nothing with thick upholstery. I have my eye on a couple '40's sofas, and hubby wants new.He is worried about second hand furniture and having to deal with bad smells,unstable furniture and bugsSo What if i buy something that turns out to be buggy or needs a good cleaning( meaning i discover these problems after money has changed hands? How easy is it to get these pieces cleaned and has anyone any stories to share of furniture struggles that have been overcome?Any advice?

 

[Solid Citizen]

Upholstery & Furniture Repair

We have a three person sofa thats been in the family from the
1930's/1940's used on a daily basis. About 6 years ago we needed
a reupholstery job done, which included fixing the inner sofa frame for strength.

Consider the following:

1. Quality, amount & cost of replacement fabric?
2. Labor cost & time to finish the job?
3. Upholstery & furniture repair go hand in hand. IMO
if the selected craftsman can't do both keep walking!
4. Get & check provided work qualty references before you
agree to the job!

Solid Citizen

PS If you find some vintage pieces you like
don't be stampeded into buying by the seller
unless the concerns you raised are satisfied.
Remember its YOUR money!

 

[olive bleu]

Those are great tips SOLID CITIZEN, thank you I think he would be ok with us hanging on to a piece of family furniture if i wanted to have it reupholstered ( maybe) it's the taking on of someone elses years of dirt and misuse that he's concerned about.I think he is recalling the times that i have rescued furniture headed for the trash that really should have been allowed to rest in peace. Now, i hope I have the sense and patience to wait for pieces that have the quality to hold up to years more of use in my own family.

 

[Foofoogal]

Vintage furniture just flat has better bones.
Finding a good wingback chair and getting it reupholstered in your handpicked fabric one can never ever go wrong.
Surely if you don't want to reupholster a good company can steamclean or clean it for you. Many companies come to your home and have guarantees.
I will say it forever. The direction we are going sort of scares me. Getting less for more money. The younger generation will not know quality if they have never seen it.
Furniture is same as shoes IMHO.
A good pair of shoes will outlast 6 cheap pairs.

 

[Lilibet]

I would look for pieces to have reupholstered rather than to use as is, and I would make certain to buy from a reputable place that sanitizes upholstery before selling it. (In case you have to wait a little while for reupholstering.) I have read horror stories about bedbugs coming into a home, and not leaving before costing the homeowner thousands of dollars.

I am an interior designer, and I will respectfully disagree that vintage furniture is necessarily better in quality than new. What older pieces are around now were the good-quality products, yes, but there was cheap stuff too. We just don't see it because it didn't last long enough. There is beautiful, well-made new furniture that is bench-made just as it was in the past.

Reupholstering is not a less-expensive alternative to buying new. There are labor costs as well as fabric costs, which are all over the map, and the quantities needed are more than you might expect. For example, a 3-seat sofa with loose cushions on the seat and back can take at least 20 yards, more if the pattern has a large repeat. A smallish chair will take at least 8 yards. There is often a lot of waste when things are re-covered, due to pattern matching and centering, so make sure that the upholsterer saves every decent-sized piece of scrap -- they're a good way to make pillows and recover small wood-frame chair seats. Here in central Ohio I recently had a small 1940s Empire-style bench done; the labor was $300 and the fabric was about $200.

The biggest advantage, IMO, of buying older upholstered furniture is that the scale of the pieces were generally smaller than they are today. Even in large rooms the trend was to make several groupings of smaller pieces, rather than the style today of having a gigantic sectional or whatever, with everybody in one area.

If you buy a sofa -- and this holds for new as well as old -- pick up one end. It should lift up easily (relative to the weight), with no sagging, twisting, or squeaking. If it does any of those things the joints in the frame are not solid, and over time the frame will come apart.

 

[Foofoogal]

I am an interior designer, and I will respectfully disagree that vintage furniture is necessarily better in quality than new.

Agreed that one can find good stuff now but one will pay for the luxury of the better made. Yes, it is also pricey to reupholster.