Upholstery Restoration & Select Fabrics,Inc — Local services in Kensington

TLDR: If you are reading this curious about this company’s work and if you should work with them, take this as your sign, and run the other way!

This company is unprofessional, rude, and took our money without being able to execute the ask properly. The owners communicate so poorly and slowly. Dave, the person we did most of our communicating with is completely incapable of listening. He interrupted every single conversation we would have and just blurt out random stuff in the middle of us explaining the ask. (Which is probably why he never understood the assignment). This of course, made it very hard to communicate our vision, and then get proper feedback. He would consistently come from a place of no, instead of being able to offer alternative options OR just turn down the job since they ended up not being able to upholster a simple banquette. We would receive one email for every 3 we sent. They never answered any of our questions in the communications and left us hanging on all details throughout the process.

TWO TIMES - They sent someone to our house who did not speak one word of English. This person’s job was to measure, go over the template for our upholstery, and to explain the plan for installation. How is that possible when the person does not speak any English whatsoever? He was also totally left in the dark about the plan we shared with the owners - which makes perfect sense since they weren’t able to communicate with him either. After not one, but two measuring appointments with this same individual take place…. the fabric is ordered, the 50% payment is paid, the owner called us to tell us he was unaware of the measurements we spoke and were in writing from DAY 1!

Again, please note, this is after 50% payment was made, the fabric was ordered, and over 6 months of back and forth. 6 MONTHS.

There were lots of other very unfortunate mishaps in this process but these are the main ones worth noting if you are looking to hire an upholsterer.

We felt stuck with no other options, but then we found another upholsterer called Simply Upholstery after lots of googling and reaching out to other options. In just one conversation, they listened to our idea for our built-in, sent us fabric options within a week, are charging a fair price, AND are going to be able to complete the project within 1 month of initially speaking to them. I would highly recommend going there. It has been a true pleasure, very easy to explain what we want, and they are quick to communicate effectively. They actually know what they are doing. Upholstery Restoration was a true nightmare and I hope I can spare...

I had a very bad recent experience with this upholsterer when I tried to get a kitchen banquette re-upholstered. They were extremely disorganized and the customer service was terrible. I initially spoke to one of the owners, OB, who told me that he thought the job would cost around $1,000 and that I should come to his show room to look at fabrics. I went to the showroom and spent time picking out fabrics, but OB wasn't there and his brother, Dave, gave me an estimate of $1570, not including the cost of the fabric. When I told him that OB had given me a much lower range, he said he would have OB call me back. It took a while for me to finally get in touch with OB, but when he finally called me back, he did not remember my first conversation with him. This was frustrating. But he said he would have someone come out to look at the banquette and give me another estimate, and he assured me that he would give me a good deal. Thereafter, in trying to schedule this appointment, I left three messages for OB, which he did not answer. When I finally left a message saying that I was going to write a negative review, someone else called me back and scheduled the appointment. They came out and gave me an estimate of $1550, again not including fabric, and when I asked for an all-in estimate, it came to over $1900. This was a complete waste of my time and I would not recommend these...

I may have received the best service of my life at Upholstery Restoration, and I'm sure that I wasn't an easy customer. The decor in my living room is mid-century modern, and my sofa remained unchanged for many years, until our new puppy, with her sharp little teeth (all the better to rip the furniture apart) convinced me that the sofa needed attention.

Mike was so patient with my indecision, and so enthusiastic about helping me find the right fabric for our color combinations and our casual lifestyle (Note cat on the couch -- and she never laid a claw on the "old" couch, it was strictly the dog!)

I still like the low, curvy shape of the couch, and the bones were still good, so re-upholstering was the way to go. I didn't want a gigantic sofa, but I still wanted three separate cushions, rather than an awkward two-cushion arrangement.

Mike's suggestions were great, and I appreciated that he picked up on my preferences rather than trying to push something that wasn't our style. I also liked that he didn't hesitate to mention replacing the wooden "piping" (not sure what it's really called -- in sewing, we call it "piping") around the wicker around the caning on the sides of the sofa. It really added a lot, giving a brand-new (though vintage style) look to the piece.

Thank you so much, all of you, for your beautiful work and excellent suggestions. It was a pleasure...