Spruce Upholstery

We so wanted to like this company. We went in on a Saturday and brought in one of our dining chairs with us to get an estimate on the cost of recovering all 7 of them. The two employees there were friendly and helpful and there were nice samples of their work in the store. We picked out a fabric that, according to their price listing, was $35.90/yard. I quickly calculated an estimate for the labor, fabric, and foam, but the employee said that she couldn't give us an "official" bid until Tuesday. Having quickly calculated the estimate on the spot ourselves, we were confident that the "official" bid would be about $898 and that seemed a reasonable price for recovering 7 dining chairs and we decided to leave the dining chair we brought with us because we figured we would probably accept the "official" bid. As promised, we received the official bid by email on Tuesday, but the cost was $1,206.99, much higher than expected. The employee wanted to charge us $74/yard of fabric rather than $35.90/yard. She also asked for photos of my chairs, which was odd because I had left the chair there so that she could draft her "official" bid. I had to remind her that the chair was there. Not at all satisfied with this "official" bid, I did a very quick search of the fabric online and found the fabric on sale on several sites for as low as $28.72/yard. So, I went back to Spruce today and said that I wanted to retrieve my chair and explained that we would still consider having our chairs recovered by them, but if so, the bid would need to be redone because the bid for the fabric was more than double the price listed in the fabric swatch book. One of the employees who had been there on Saturday and helped us with the fabric remembered that the price was definitely not $74/yard. We eventually found the fabric swatch book and found that the price was, indeed, listed as $35.90/yard. The other employee there (not the same one who helped us that Saturday) then looked up the price online and said that the fabric had increased in price to $37/yard. I mentioned that I had found it online for as low as $28.72/yard and asked whether I could buy the fabric myself and bring it in for them to use. She said "Yes, but we'll have to charge you $7.50/yard." This, I think, is very unreasonable. Given the negative experience we had with the bid, one would think that a good business practice would be to offer to forego the $7.50/yard fee for bringing in one's own fabric, if not some other discount. Nothing of the kind was offered, so we will be looking elsewhere for reupholstery. Buyer beware! Be sure to do your own calculations and scrutinize your bid from Spruce!

Our project was to repair and recover two couches. The couches, which together create a half-circle, were built in the 1950s for the Rae Ann shop salon room, a dress shop across from the University of Texas, which closed late 1970s--my husband's grandmother's shop. Spruce provided good design and repair advice, heped us select and order our fabric, they repaired the springs and broken frame, added/improved a design feature, and beautifully recovered ithem. Spruce helped us fit the project into our budget in several ways. a few years ago, Spruce repaired and recovered two living room chairs with durable fabric, which has held up well under assault from our cats and dog, as they assured us.

The quality of the fabric is excellent. One of the fabrics was on back order so that was frustrating but the staff at Spruce did all they could to locate another manufacturer for me. I decided to sew the pillows and boxed cushions myself finding instructions on the internet and saved quite a bit of money by doing this. They turned out very professional looking and am happy with the final product(s).

it started well, but then the seamstress sewed the fabric incorrectly, so the pattern between the two cushions didn't match. they actually pointed this out to me and offered to redo it w/out me asking them to, so kudos to them for that. and I wasn't even upset about that b/c everyone makes mistakes, so no harm done. then they actually delivered the redo seat cushion to my house, so kudos again to them for that! however, when it was all said and done, and I had both cushions delivered, I sat in my chair and the seat cushion totally sank in the middle. then when I got out of the chair, it stayed sunken in the middle instead of popping back up, so I had a permanent and quot;butt impressionand quot; in it after sitting in it for only 30 minutes. I kept using it off and on for about 1 month hoping it was just the inside material that would sort of and quot;work itself outand quot;. It never did. The butt impression/sunken hole stayed put, and needless to say I wasn't happy b/c it looked horrible and that is most definitely NOT what a professional (and expensive) upholstery job is supposed to look like. I even bought a $20 seat cushion from marshall's to see if it was different and sure enough, it popped back into place after I got out of the chair. well, when I took the seat cushion back into spruce to ask what they could do to fix it, I got quite a bit of attitude. I was told that since we had had and quot;so many conversations about this productand quot; that I should have known how it was going to work. hmmm, well that's odd, b/c I don't remember them ever telling me during our initial design conversations that I would have a horrible-looking and permanent sunken hole in my seat cushion immediately upon sitting in it. The girl was obviously perturbed that she was having to deal w/this issue, and she made me feel like I was being irrational, which I surely wasn't b/c all I was asking was if they could maybe put some more stuffing in that area to fill out that hole. i wasn't even asking them to redo the cushion or anything. To her credit, she did add stuffing at no charge (which was the right thing to do). however, the fact that this salesperson basically blamed ME for not understanding how the cushion product works (or doesn't work, rather), and the attitude I got for actually having the gall to question their product was more than disappointing. i'm still not entirely happy w/the seat cushion, but at this point i'm just going to cut my close to $300 worth of losses and live w/it. enduring more attitude isn't worth it.

Very creative shop. Great craftsmanship.

The owners of Spruce are young, fun, energetic, polite AND professional. There were 6 'students' in our class and everyone completed reupholstering a simple chair in @ 8 hours.....(and they look professionally done....not like a beginner at all!) The workstudio was perfect for this class and the supplies and tools first-class. They also have an upholstery business and a small retail store. I definitely would recommend them for the class and for upholstery services. Check it out!