what is a strong fabric for furniture upholstery, but with the lowest cost

jack_121

Hi And thanks for reading. What is a strong durable upholstery fabric but without the expensive price tag, I mean for a strength to price ratio

Thanks

Potternerd

There is something called the Martindale test which is a scale of how many rubs upholstery material should take. To be really durable it should be over 25 000 rubs.
Depending on how much you need most fabric shops will have end of line fabrics cheaper.

jack_121

Thanks! I don't have fabric shops nearby. What i would like to know is which is material is long-life , does not bubble, and is not pricey. I have never done this before so have no idea, but have done a search for tough fabrics and am getting prices of 8 pounds a meter, which i think is a little high

[Deleted User]

Hi,

what is it for, will it get a lot of abuse?

Grumpelstiltskin

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

what is it for, will it get a lot of abuse?

If you are new to upholstery you need to be careful. For instance if you want to recover drop in dining chairs you will have to remove the existing fabric and choose one that will allow the seat to drop back in. 

I would be wary of tackling a bigger job until you have practiced on something small, good fabric isn't cheap and you could waste a lot of money.

For something small look in local charity shops, I got a 1 metre piece of fabric for £1 this week, big enough to recover a piano stool.

timehastoldme

Places like pound fabrics will have some upholstery fabric, £8 a metre isn't really that expensive though and definitely practice with something cheap before launching into the expensive stuff.

https://poundfabrics.co.uk/pages/search-results-page?q=upholstery

jack_121

Thanks!

Brilliant advice, i would like some pointers in the right direction.

To me £8 a metre is a lot to pay, i am thinking about half of that as a maximum figure.

The fabric is for a red metal foldable chair. The fake leather seat covering has cracked and a yellow sponge inside is crumbling.

I have some more sponge but i just need advice on what fabric to buy to replace the leather

I don't want to spend too much as i have seen these foldable chairs sell on ebay for a few pounds, it's just the hassle of driving all that way to pick up the chairs, petrol ,costs etc

I need the specfic name of fabric that is tough, will not bobble and is not overly expensive

Thank you

Longwalker

Go to a charity shop and look at curtains 

There is no name for what you are looking for, you can buy lots of fabrics which will or wont bobble.

We got faux leather very cheap in Dunelm

Dont forget you dont need a metre. A metre will do four chairs if there is no pattern. You only need half a metre - that will do two chair pads

annieb64

We replaced the back and seat on a couple of folding chairs for DD using canvas which we got from a factory shop just down the road from where we were living which was just outside Manchester. Canvas might be a bit stiff if you want it for a padded seat. I'd certainly check out the charity shops especially the cheaper ones that sometimes have baskets of oddments or if you have a market nearby there might be a fabric stall with remnants .

[Deleted User]

Hi,

a bit of old tarpaulin should do the job.

diystarter7

Hi

Not sure what its called but over 30, possibly 35 years ago my parents had lovely, white, large, soft sofas and  we needed something more durable . Went to the market and the bloke sold us this fabric that was used in the ford cortina ghia cars that were no longer built. The covered looked brand never years after we changed our sofa. So go to a market and see if anyone selss old car seating material. As it was for the Ghia car a top range Ford, it was sofe and warm, light grey with little sques felt like very classy velevet. Having said that, like everyhting, stuff is not made as it was years ago so possibly not the same quailty.

Thnaks