Vintage sofa frame quality

melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/

9 years ago

Earlier I asked about the vintage sofa/loveseat from my grandmother's place, and the consensus was that it might be worth reupholstering if the frame is good quality.

I can't take the sofa and loveseat to be evaluated by an upholstery shop right now, but I have been researching online what makes a sofa frame high quality, and it appears that the sofa/loveseat are not.

I took some pictures of the springs and frame base...through a hole that is ripped at the underside of the loveseat. The zig-zag springs, not coils, are not hand tied, and it looks like I can see stapled frame...which is supposed to be another sign of lower quality. The corner blocks are nailed, not screwed. The pillows are stuffed with either batting, or batting and foam, and I can't find a manufacturer name anywhere.

I'm thinking about just taking the foam/batting and using it to firm up our currently super squishy/uncomfortable sofa ;-)

Here are a couple pics, can anyone tell what kind of frame quality I'm looking at?

Comments (3)

palimpsest
9 years ago
Sinuous coils aren't bad in and of themselves. Very few sofas are actually of the quality that they have the seven way hand tied springs.

The frame on this sofa doesn't look to be great quality but if it's sturdy it still may be cheaper to recover with a decent but not expensive fabric than buying a new sofa of similar quality. It depends on what kind of upholstery it needs and how much it costs in your area.

I saw a sofa put out for trash the other day that had been heavily mutilated on one arm by a cat. Underneath the upholstery on the arm of that sofa was a thin layer of foam and batting and Cardboard stapled over a stapled frame.
martinca_gw sunset zone 24
9 years ago
An upholsterer once told me this "S " ? Type is next best to 7 way hand tied.
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melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/
Original Author
9 years ago
Cardboard, seriously?!!??

Thanks for your thoughts. The plan is to unload them from the truck once we finish painting the patio; put them on the patio and decide if they are comfortable/more comfortable than our current sofa.

I really don't think we have space in our living room for both the sofa and loveseat, which is a bummer. Well, there COULD be space but then you'd have to climb over them to get into the living room LOL! :-)

Not sure upholstery costs, but I'm guessing it will be more money than we'd like to pay ;-) My DH doesn't like them any more or any less than what we already have, but our current is easier to keep clean because it has the microsuede fabric. He'd like leather, ideally, so I will look into the price of that!