Furniture Repair and Refinishing Services

Two trades, not one

Furniture repair is two separate small trades with different rules

Furniture repair sounds like one job. Federal wage data says it is at least two. Upholsterers are their own occupation code, SOC 51-6093, with national employment of 20,140¹. Furniture finishers are a different occupation, SOC 51-7021, with 14,480³. Add them and the entire country has 34,620 people doing this for a living.

That scarcity explains more about your quote and your wait than anything else does. A shop that strips and refinishes wood may not touch a seat cushion. A shop that recovers seats may send the frame out. When you call and get told six weeks, that is not a negotiating tactic. It is what a trade of 34,620 people looks like from the customer side.

Both halves of the work are regulated in ways almost nobody mentions. Recovering a sofa puts it under a federal flammability standard that names reupholstery in its scope sentence⁴. Stripping an old finish runs into an EPA rule that is closing off the classic furniture stripper on a published timetable⁵. Neither fact shows up on the pages that quote you a price range.

Six different jobs that all get called furniture repair

Match the job to the trade before you start calling, because most shops do some of these and not others.

Frame and joint repair

Chairs fail at the joints first. A loose leg or a racked frame gets taken apart, the old glue cleaned out of the mortise, then reglued and clamped square. This is wood work, not upholstery, though an upholstered chair has to be stripped down before anyone can reach it. Ask whether one shop does both halves.

Reupholstery

The cover comes off, the deck, webbing and springs get inspected, and the piece is rebuilt in new material. This is regulated work. The federal standard at 16 CFR 1640 applies to all upholstered furniture reupholstered on or after June 25, 2021⁴, so the fabric and filling are not a free choice.

Stripping and refinishing

The old finish is removed, the wood repaired and sanded, then stained and topcoated. This is the furniture finisher's trade, 14,480 people nationally³. It is also the part EPA has been restricting. Methylene chloride stripper left the consumer market after November 22, 2019⁵, and the commercial channel closed in dated steps after that.

Finish touch-up

Not every ring, scratch or chip needs a full strip. Colour matched fill, burn-in sticks and a spot topcoat can save a finish that is mostly sound. Ask about this first. It is the cheaper path, and a shop that only quotes refinishing will not volunteer it unless you raise it.

Parts and cushion replacement

A sagging sofa is usually foam, not frame. Some makers sell the part directly. Sabai lists seat cushion inserts and cushion covers as separate items on its own product feed⁸, and Floyd publishes a spare parts catalogue running from a metal fastener bolt at $8.00 upward⁷. Check the maker before you book a shop.

Antique and period work

Older pieces carry hazards ordinary furniture does not. EPA left furniture refinishing a narrow methylene chloride carve-out, but only for pieces of artistic, cultural or historic significance, and it expires after May 8, 2029⁵. Paint on furniture made before February 27, 1978 also sits outside the federal lead paint ban⁹.

People in both trades, nationally34,620

Authoritative published price for a repair jobNone

What does it cost?

No authoritative source publishes what a shop charges to repair, recover or refinish a piece of furniture. Not a federal agency, not a trade association, not a manufacturer. Every cost to reupholster a couch figure in circulation traces back to a lead generation aggregator with no stated methodology behind it. We are not going to reprint one and call it research.

What can be sourced is the labour input and the parts. Upholsterers earn a median of $22.28 an hour and furniture finishers $21.41, in the 2025 OEWS annual estimates²¹⁰. Those are wages paid to employees, not a billed shop rate, which also carries premises, insurance, materials and margin. On parts, Floyd's published feed lists a metal fastener bolt at $8.00 against a Sofa 2.0 Three Seater at $2,190.00 to $3,840.00⁷. An $8.00 bolt against a $2,190.00 sofa is the entire repairability argument in two published numbers.

Wage figures are the 2025 OEWS annual estimates read from the BLS public data API, and part prices were read from manufacturer product feeds on 7 August 2026; none of these are shop rates and all exclude labour, delivery and tax.

Hiring

How to hire for furniture repair and refinishing

1

Who does the work

Two occupations, sometimes under one roof and often not. Upholsterers cover and pad. Furniture finishers strip, stain and topcoat. In California both fall under state licensing: the Bureau of Household Goods and Services issues a Custom Upholsterer licence at $420 per location for two years⁶. Ask directly which of the two trades is in the building.

2

What pros will ask

What the piece is, how old it is, and whether the frame is hardwood or staples. Whether you are supplying the fabric or buying theirs. Whether the finish is being repaired or removed. Whether the piece has ever been painted, which matters for anything built before February 27, 1978⁹. And whether you need it back by a date.

3

What to check before signing

Get the scope in writing: strip or touch up, new foam or reuse, welt or no welt. Confirm the piece will come back with the permanent label reading that it complies with U.S. CPSC requirements for upholstered furniture flammability, which 16 CFR 1640.4(b) treats as the shop's certification⁴. Ask who stores the piece and who insures it while they have it.

Furniture repair questions, answered straight

Is it cheaper to repair furniture or replace it?

Nobody publishes the repair price, so this cannot be answered as a rule. It can be answered for parts. Floyd sells spare parts against whole pieces on the same feed: legs from $5.00, a metal fastener bolt at $8.00, sofa parts up to $175.00, against a three seater sofa at $2,190.00 to $3,840.00⁷. Sabai does the same with cushion inserts and covers⁸. If the failure is a part the maker still sells, buying the part is not a close call.

Will one shop do both the wood and the upholstery?

Some will, many will not, and the wage data suggests why. These are two separate federal occupations, 20,140 upholsterers and 14,480 furniture finishers¹³, and a small shop rarely staffs both. Ask the question in those terms: do you strip and finish in house, or do you sub it out. If they sub it out, you are paying for two shops and waiting on two schedules, and you want to know that before the piece leaves your house.

Does reupholstering a sofa have to meet a safety standard?

Yes. 16 CFR 1640.1(b) states that all upholstered furniture manufactured, imported or reupholstered on or after the effective date is subject to the standard, and 16 CFR 1640.2(a) puts that date at June 25, 2021⁴. The standard requires compliance with California Technical Bulletin 117-2013 for smoulder resistance. That applies to your sofa the moment it is recovered, not just to new furniture in a showroom.

Can a shop still strip my furniture with methylene chloride?

It depends on the piece, and the honest answer is that the rule is narrow rather than absolute. Consumer sale ended after November 22, 2019⁵. Commercial use of methylene chloride for the uses EPA listed ended after April 28, 2026, with a carve-out for refinishing wooden furniture, decorative pieces and architectural fixtures of artistic, cultural or historic significance, which itself expires after May 8, 2029⁵. Ask the shop what it strips with now.

My piece is old and painted. Is that a problem?

It can be. The federal ban on lead-containing paint on furniture articles at 16 CFR 1303.1 applies to products manufactured after February 27, 1978⁹. Anything painted before that is outside the ban and may carry lead, and stripping or sanding is exactly what releases it. The regulation lists beds, bookcases, chairs, chests, tables, dressers, desks and sofas as furniture articles⁹. Tell the shop the age of the piece before anyone touches it with an abrasive.

Sources

Where these facts came from

Every figure on this page was read out of the page linked below. We do not cite cost aggregators.

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