How Much Does It Cost to Get Dining Chairs Reupholstered?

Reupholstering dining chairs in the UK typically costs somewhere between £45 and £120 per chair for a simple drop in seat pad, and £120 to £300 per chair for a fully upholstered frame with a back panel, piping or buttoning. Fabric is charged separately in most cases, usually between £20 and £70 per metre depending on quality, and a standard dining chair seat needs around half a metre to one metre. So for a set of six chairs, most households in the UK end up spending somewhere between £400 and £1,200 all in.

What Actually Drives the Price

The single biggest variable is how much of the chair is upholstered. A wooden chair with a removable seat pad is quick work: the pad unscrews, the old fabric comes off, new foam goes on if needed, and the new cover is stapled underneath. An upholsterer can turn one round in under an hour. That efficiency is reflected in the price.

A chair with an upholstered back, a sprung seat, or a fixed frame is a different job entirely. The old covering has to be stripped without damaging the frame, the padding assessed, the fabric cut to follow the shape of the back, and everything hand finished. On chairs with buttoning or a scroll back, the labour can run to several hours per chair.

Condition matters too. If the webbing has gone, the springs have dropped, or the foam has crumbled into dust, those materials need replacing before the new cover goes on. Rebuilding a seat base adds perhaps £30 to £60 per chair. Frame repairs, such as regluing loose joints or replacing a split rail, add more.

Fabric Costs Explained

Fabric is where budgets quietly expand. A hardwearing polyester blend from a general upholstery range might be £20 to £30 per metre. A wool blend or a good quality chenille sits closer to £40 to £60. Designer weaves, velvets with a high rub count, and real leather can go well beyond that.

Rub count, measured in Martindale cycles, is worth understanding. Dining chairs get daily use, so look for something rated for general domestic use at minimum, and ideally heavy domestic. A cheap fabric that pills within a year is a false economy when you are paying for the labour twice.

Patterned fabric costs more in practice than the price per metre suggests, because the pattern has to be matched and centred across each chair. Expect to buy extra material to allow for this, sometimes an additional twenty to thirty percent.

Reupholstering Versus Replacing

This is the calculation most people are really trying to make. If a set of six chairs will cost £900 to recover, and a comparable new set is available for less, the sums only work if the chairs are worth keeping for another reason.

Good reasons to reupholster include a solid hardwood frame that is genuinely well made, a chair shape you cannot find anywhere else, a set inherited from family, or chairs that match an existing table you have no intention of replacing. Antique and mid century frames are almost always worth saving because the joinery is better than most contemporary production.

Reasons to replace instead include flat pack frames with particle board components, chairs where the joints have loosened repeatedly, or a set you never particularly liked. There is little point spending several hundred pounds to keep something you tolerate rather than enjoy. If you are leaning that way, our range of dining chairs UK sale covers everything from simple wooden frames to fully padded designs, and buying a matched set often works out more predictable than a restoration quote.

Getting an Accurate Quote

Most upholsterers will not price a job over the phone with any confidence, and the ones who do tend to quote high to protect themselves. Send photographs of the chair from the front, the side and underneath, along with rough dimensions of the seat. If the underside shows webbing and hessian rather than a plywood board, say so, because that tells them a lot about the construction.

Ask what the quote includes. Some prices are labour only, some assume you supply the fabric, and some cover new foam and webbing as standard. Ask whether collection and return are included, since transporting six chairs is not trivial if you do not have a van.

It is also reasonable to ask how many chairs they will do at once. Some workshops offer a small discount on sets because setting up for a repeat job is faster than starting from scratch each time.

Doing It Yourself

For drop in seat pads, the maths changes completely. Fabric, foam and a staple gun for six chairs might come to £120 to £200 total. The skill required is modest: you are essentially wrapping a rectangle and pulling the corners neatly. Most people manage a respectable result on their second chair, having learned from the first.

Fully upholstered chairs are harder than they look. The tension across a curved back is difficult to get even, and mistakes show. If the chairs matter to you, that is not the project to learn on.

Where Reupholstery Fits in a Wider Room Refresh

It is worth thinking about the room rather than the chairs in isolation. Recovered chairs in a new fabric can look slightly disconnected if the table, sideboard and lighting all stay as they were. Sometimes a lighter change works better: new seat pads in a tone that picks up something already in the room, paired with a change to the surrounding pieces.

If the table itself is tired, a full set replacement can be more economical than reupholstery plus a new table bought separately. Our modern dining table and chairs sets UK are put together as coordinated groups, which removes the guesswork around proportions and finish. For rooms where the table is fine and only the seating needs attention, browsing fabric dining chairs UK sale gives a useful sense of what current upholstery weights and colours look like in a dining setting.

At Furniture in Fashion we stock a broad selection of dining furniture across styles and materials, with free delivery to most UK mainland postcodes. Returns are available up to 30 days.

Timescales

A small independent upholsterer will usually quote two to four weeks for a set of six chairs, longer in autumn when workshops get busy ahead of Christmas. Fabric ordering adds time if the material is not held in stock, and cutting from a special order roll can add another one to two weeks. Ask about lead time at the quoting stage rather than after you have handed the chairs over.

Making the Money Go Further

If budget is tight, consider recovering only the chairs that show wear. Carvers at the head of the table often look worse than side chairs simply because they are used more. A partial refresh in a matching fabric is perfectly acceptable and rarely noticed.

Another option is to reuse the existing foam if it is still springy and holds its shape. Foam is a meaningful part of the materials cost, and there is no need to replace it if it has not compressed.

Finally, keep offcuts. A spare half metre stored flat means you can recover a single damaged seat in future without buying a whole new roll or discovering the fabric has been discontinued.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much fabric do I need for one dining chair?

A simple drop in seat pad usually needs around half a metre of fabric at standard 140cm width. A fully upholstered chair with a padded back typically needs one to one and a half metres. Add extra for pattern matching.

Is it cheaper to reupholster or buy new dining chairs?

For basic chairs, buying new is often cheaper. Reupholstery makes financial sense when the frames are solid hardwood, the design is hard to replace, or the chairs have sentimental value.

Can I reupholster dining chairs myself?

Removable seat pads are a realistic beginner project needing only a staple gun, scissors and a screwdriver. Fully upholstered chairs with curved backs or buttoning are better left to a professional.

How long do reupholstered dining chairs last?

With a good quality fabric rated for heavy domestic use and sound padding underneath, a recovered dining chair should give ten years or more of regular family use before it needs attention again.

Does the type of fabric change the labour cost?

Yes. Thick fabrics such as heavy velvet and real leather are harder to pull and staple neatly, and patterned material requires careful alignment. Both can increase the labour charge compared with a plain, easy handling weave.