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Yesterday we gave an on-line estimate on this recliner. Here is the customers response.

Rosie I received your estimate on my chairs
> and thought it a little high. I was wondering if you could
> possibly do it for 300 a chair as I don't think they
> need new cushions as the beading on the front has slipped
> down a little bit. The material is very expensive more than
> I expected to pay. Was very happy with my dinette chairs
> that you did for me is why I new you did very good
> work. I think the chairs are very easy and not
> complicated to do. Would appreciate it if you would consider
> my offer. Thank you (name omited)


This is what Rose wrote back.

While the expensive fabric can be substituted with another that is of
equal quality--a good upholsterer is not as readily available.

Here is a list of on-line stores who sell high quality fabric at a discounted price.

Fabric Guru       
http://www.fabricguru.com/c-fabric-by-the-yard

Online Fabric Store
http://www.onlinefabricstore.net/decor-fabric.aspx

Silverstone Fabrics
http://www.silverstonefabrics.com/category_s/1933.htm

Toto Fabrics
http://www.totofabrics.com/upskyblwichm.html


It is not that the chairs are too difficult ( we have over 25 years experience)
but that it  takes time and care to do them to our standards.
We will not cut corners and rush out a job
to do it cheaper and we only use the very best materials.

Please reconsider--I have already discounted the chairs from our normal
charge of $395. And we are not charging for pick up and delivery.
This is a very fair price far below what the per hour shop
wage of other comparable upholsterers is.

Please reconsider using us--I know you will be please with our workmanship.


Opinions please. Constructive criticism always welcome.

Here is how America can get its multi-billion dollar furniture industry back. Instead or competing with labor costs, out produce them with technology.

Gotta get me one of these for my cutting room
http://lectra.actonservice.com/acton/media/11624/lectra-vector-cutting-room

Well maybe not that exciting.

Pantone chooses Marsala as 2015 Color of the Year
http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/494093-pantone-chooses-marsala-2015-color-year

Sunday we listed our house with a realtor. Our plan is to move our business back to Gainesville. Its a custom built 2 bedroom 2 bath on 10 acres. It features a 860 sf air conditioned upholstery workroom. The details are here if any of you snow birds are interested in moving to Florida.  :)

http://www.poolerealty.com/listing/108567611-150067307/11973-160th-ter-mcalpin-fl-32060/

3 months in the making. Just uploaded to yahoo. Check it out.
http://northfloridachair.com/index.html

Do you all get phone call and when you answer nobody is there. I get about 3 a day and find them very annoying.

Just finished this slide show using a program called movie maker. The program came with my laptop but i think its a free download. Very simple to use. To download the slideshow to youtube or facebook the music must have no copyrights.
Please enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgGf7OjetII

More and more companies are turning to Facebook for their on-line marketing. Some businesses do not have a web site but use Facebook instead. This year Facebook has ramped up their business campaign by redesigning and marketing toward business. You may have noticed more posts by business on Facebook.

Today I launched my Facebook Business Page. Not an easy task for someone who is not a wizard on the computer. The book, Facebook Marketing For Dummies helped a little. One huge tip. You have two choices when setting up your page. You can do it Published or unpublished. The thinking is, don't publish the page till its all set up. And that is a good idea. But there are some things that can't be done till it's published. Like setting up the timeline. It took me a whole day to figure that out.

Please like my page. And if you have one let us know so we can like it to. If anybody wants to set one up let me know. I'll help you muddle through it.

https://www.facebook.com/LaddUpholsteryDesign

So sorry to hear about your little Carly. I feel i've gotten to know her over the last month and a tear came to my eye when I read your words.

My wife and i have always been a 3 dog family. That is till last year and now we're just down to little Rambo. A Chihuahua-Dachshund mix.

Until last week. We were going to Publix and noticed an adoption fair at Pet Smart. We walked over "just to look." Will this little girl caught Rose's eye and now she's part of our family. At 9 months shes full of vim and vinegar. You just never know.



Sunny

We went to Tallahassee last weekend to visit my mom. When I got back I couldn't log on to the forum. For the last two days I thought maybe the new owner deleted this service. Anyone else have this problem?

Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The Ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

We don't do cars or boats. So whenever someone calls we suggest other upholsterers who do this type of work. Only problem is all the car people around here do furniture also. There's just is not enough business to do cars alone.

Whenever I give the phone number for the other upholsterer I always say, tell them Ladd's sent you and if you ever need household furniture done we're the ones to call. I'm pretty sure this goes on deaf ears.

I want to help the person on the phone hoping they'll remember me when they need furniture done but I can't help thinking I'm shooting myself in the foot each time I send them to someone else.

What does everyone else do?

BTW. There is one guy in Gainesville who only does cars but that's over an hour away form Lake City and Live Oak. Maybe I should send them their.

I was driving home Monday afternoon and at the intersection of CR49 and Old Brandford Hwy the road headding to Lake City was closed with a detour. This was odd for such a busy road and I figured either a bad accident or a sinkhole opened up.

Today my wife called. One of her co-workers asked if we would like a German Shepard. It belonged his brother in law who was killed in a motor cycle accident on Old Brandford Hwy Monday. He was run over by a dump truck.

We have room for another dog since our last Shepard died over a year ago. This 6 year old boy is a monster weighing in at 120 lbs (or so the guy says.) Nurtured. And friendly with other dogs. He's a fence jumper but our last Shepard was too. German Shepard's are generally one person dogs so there will be some adjusting. We've owned Shepherds our whole married lives so I think we can handle him.

Next week we head to the Ga. Mtns for a weeks vacation and we'll make a decision. He may be gone by the time we get back but we don't want to rush into this and I think it would be very stressful for the dog to take it on vacation. We'll see.

I was reading a Forbes publication, 39 ways to draw traffic to your website.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/05/13/39-actionable-ideas-for-driving-traffic-to-your-website/

One way is to join a site called Quora. People can log on and ask any question they fancy, including questions about furniture. And get answers from self described experts. Anyone hear of it? The people answering can tag a short Bio including their web site.

http://www.quora.com/

We're revamping our web site and will publish it soon.

Just finished this one today.

Show me someone who's not full of them self and I'll show you an empty person.

This Unbelievable Motor Home Will Replace Your Car, House, Boat And Everything Else You Own

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-elemment-palazzo-will-replace-your-car-house-boat-and-everything-else-you-own-2012-1?op=1#ixzz37ynzigvV

What kind of guarantees do you give?

I read this in a business site I visited recently.

"Guarantee - Can you offer a guarantee so strong that no one else in your industry would dream of doing it. This one frightens some people but, you probably guarantee your work anyway. Lifetime warranty on workmanship."

This is true. If my work starts falling apart before the fabric wares out I fix it. So why not tell people this. Why not use this in advertising.

Springs, foam and frame joints would have to be excluded. People can be pretty rough on furniture. But as far as my re-upholstery and sewing skills and such, why not?

People often ask, is my sofa worth reupholstering. And my standard reply is, if you paid less than $1000 for it probably not. The cheep furniture coming out of china starts falling apart after 5 or 6 years. After that you throw it away and buy a new one. But if you buy a high quality piece for say $1500 to $2000 or buy a mid century piece at a second hand store it will be worth recovering for generations.

Here is a good article that explains it better than I can.

http://interiordec.about.com/od/faqsonfurniture/a/Furniture-Upholstery-What-Does-It-Cost.htm

The owner of a outdoor patio furniture store was referred to me by a refinishing friend.

She has a line of wicker furniture by the name of Lloyd Flanders. Very high end. They have an exclusive process that allows the furniture to stay outdoors in the elements.

Her problem is she can't find anyone who can do repairs. I went to her store to have a look. The frames are aluminum. The wicker is made from a paper product which is wrapped around a wire then woven on a loom. This wicker fabric is then stretched onto the frame then fastened to the frame just like an upholsterer would stretch and fasten fabric on a wood frame.

For the life of me I couldn't figure how they fastened it to the aluminum frame. So I found this Youtub video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCKaxedXwVM

The video gets interesting at the 4:30 mark. This is a state of the art facility. After weaving the fabric it next goes to the cutting room where patterns are cut by a computer controlled Gerber cutter

Next is where it gets really interesting. They feed the wicker fabric into a press where it crimps a metal band around the bottom. This metal band is what gets screwed to the bottom of the chair. I'm sure If I decided to pursue this venture the fabric would come pre-cut with the bands attached.

At the 5:00 mark they show stretching and fastening the fabric to the aluminum frame using... stainless steal staples.

Does anyone know of a gun that will shoot a staple into aluminum?

Here's the other thing. The fabric comes unpainted. You cannot paint the fabric before you stretch it on. The paint would crack plus the staples that hold the trim on need to be painted at the end of the process.

The store owner said she can get touch-up paint in spray cans. I'm thinking this is fine for touching up but I don't think it would work to paint a large area like the back and arms. Also the video shows each piece being cooked at 280* for 20 minutes. Something I cannot do. But something I can do is once the repair is complete send it to my buddy who does refinishing.

Normally I would say this furniture is not worth recovering but a small Lloyd Flanders chair costs $800. I'm thinking to recover the arms and back would take about 4 hours and charge $150-$200. Most customers would see this as a bargain.

My main concern is where to find a gun that shoots through aluminum.

I'll call Lloyd Flanders and talk to a technician tomorrow but not sure how many trade secrets they will be willing to give up.