Guide · upholstery in Melbourne
A sofa is eight layers: frame, webbing, springs, hessian, foam, Dacron, cover and dust cover. Only two, the cover on top and the dust cover underneath, are ever visible. When we open a lounge in our Eltham North workshop the layers have almost always failed in the same order: Dacron, foam, webbing, spring clips, then frame. A cover that still looks fine tells you nothing about the sofa under it.
Last updated: October 2026
Get a free quoteCall 0425 832 619Every sofa, couch or lounge suite is built from the same eight layers: 14 to 18 metres of fabric over a frame of roughly 25 timber rails. From the floor up: dust cover, frame, webbing, springs, hessian, foam, Dacron and cover. What separates a cheap couch from a good one is the quality of each layer, never the list.
| Layer (trade name) | What it does | Typical life |
|---|---|---|
| Dust cover (cambric, bottom cloth) | Hides the underside, keeps dust out | 10 to 15 years |
| Frame (rails, corner blocks, show-wood) | The skeleton | 30 plus in hardwood, 5 to 10 in particleboard |
| Webbing (strapping) | Supports springs or foam | 5 to 8 elastic, 15 plus jute |
| Springs (coil, zigzag, pocket) | Bounce and recovery | 15 to 30, clips fail first |
| Hessian (burlap, spring cloth) | Floor under the padding | 15 to 20 |
| Foam | What you actually sit on | 3 to 5 budget, 10 to 15 HR35 |
| Dacron (polyester wrap) | Softens edges, fills the cover | 1 to 3 before it flattens |
| Cover (top cover, piping) | The only layer anyone sees | 7 to 15 by rub count |
Our view after 22 years of opening them: judge a sofa by the four layers you cannot see. The cover is the paint job; the frame and springs are the engine.
The frame decides whether a sofa is worth reupholstering. A kiln-dried hardwood frame with glued and screwed corner blocks will outlast three covers and three sets of foam, which is why our 30-year guarantee covers the hardwood frame and nothing else. A stapled particleboard frame will not survive a recover.
Corner blocks are triangular hardwood blocks glued and screwed inside each corner so the rails cannot rack. A well-made three-seater has six to eight. Budget imports often have none, and the first sign is a corner that creaks.
Three checks before we quote: grain (timber shows grain, particleboard shows flakes), joints (blocked or just stapled) and weight (a hardwood three-seater frame needs two people). If the frame is sound we rebuild on it. If not, we say so before you choose a fabric.
Show-wood, the polished legs, arms or top rail left exposed, is repolished by our French polisher, 50 years in the trade, while the upholstery is apart.
Webbing and springs are the suspension, and between them they carry your weight before the foam does any work. Webbing is the strap stretched across the frame; springs sit on it or replace it. On the bench the suspension fails long before the cover, and it is nearly always the clips and the strapping that go, not the springs.
A sprung edge is a row of coils along the front rail tied to a flexible steel edge wire, so the front gives when you perch. Which repair suits which symptom is on the sagging sofa repair page.
Hessian, foam and Dacron are the three padding layers between the springs and the cover, and they decide whether a sofa feels new or tired. Hessian stops the padding dropping into the springs, foam is the seat itself, and Dacron is the thin polyester wrap that gives the cover its smooth fill. Dacron goes first, foam second, hessian last.
Hessian is a coarse jute cloth tacked over the springs. Ask for a heavy grade, around 340 grams per square metre, because light hessian tears at the spring tops within a decade and the foam sinks between the coils. On the bench we find the tear in the same place nine times in ten: a hand-sized hole over the front row of springs, where the knees land. Hessian costs almost nothing and decides whether the foam stays where it was put.
Foam is where the money is and where retailers cut it. Our residential standard is Dunlop HR35 high-resilience foam in a firm 200 Newton or medium 165 Newton feel for seats, with a 10-year Dunlop manufacturer warranty. The budget foam we strip out of five-year-old couches is usually under 28 kg per cubic metre and already crumbling at the front edge. Density, hardness and lifespan are in the foam guide.
Dacron is a sheet of bonded polyester fibre, 100 to 200 grams per square metre, wrapped over the foam. It softens the edge and fills the cover. It collapses within one to three years of daily sitting, which is why a sofa can feel flat while the foam under it is fine. A fresh Dacron wrap on good foam is the cheapest comfort fix in the trade.
The cover is the only layer the customer chose and the only layer most people judge, which is why it is the least reliable guide to a sofa's condition. It is cut in panels, sewn with piping along the seams, pulled over the padding and stapled to the frame. The dust cover is the black cloth stapled underneath.
Every panel of the cover is cut, sewn and fitted by hand. Piping, a cord wrapped in a bias strip of the same fabric, gives the seams a sharp line and takes the wear. Our machinist, 30 years at the machine, cuts and pipes every cover. Choose the cover last, after the frame and foam decision; retailers sell the fabric first. For a family sofa, 25,000 Martindale is the minimum, 30,000 plus with large dogs.
The dust cover is a lightweight black non-woven polypropylene, stapled in a single row 10 to 15 mm apart. It is not structural; it keeps dust out and the cat out, and on most ten-year-old lounges we find it already torn where the cat won. It is the cheapest layer on the sofa and the most honest, because it fails first and shows you the suspension. Cutting it open starts every strip-down.
On the bench the layers fail in a fixed order: Dacron, foam, webbing, spring clips, then frame. Cover wear sits outside that chain, because it depends on fabric, sun and pets. A perfect cover over a collapsed seat is the most common thing we open, and a good share of our enquiries start with "the fabric is still fine".
The cover lies because a 30,000 Martindale fabric in a shaded room still looks new at year ten, by which time everything under it has gone. Retailers call soft seats and flattened fibre "settling in". Settling in finishes in the first month. Anything after that is a layer failing, and cushion foam, Dacron, webbing and clips can often be replaced without disturbing the cover you like. Diagnose from the bottom up: tip the lounge, cut a hand-sized flap in the dust cover and look.
A strip-down is two to six hours taking every layer off to the bare frame. It is the part the customer never sees and the part that can change a quote, which is why we flag it when we quote from your photos. We strip to the frame before we quote, and we advise against going over old fabric.
Staples are why stripping takes hours. A modern three-seater holds 1,500 to 3,000 of them, each lifted with a tack lifter and pulled with pincers, because a staple left behind cuts the new cover from underneath.
Why we advise against going over old fabric: the new cover is thicker at every edge, the old seams print through within months, the old padding stays in, and nobody has looked at the springs or frame. A shop that quotes a recover without stripping is quoting half a job. The full comparison is on reupholster vs recover vs slipcover.
Good to know
An upholsterer strips a piece of furniture to its frame, checks and repairs that frame, fits new webbing and springs, builds up the padding in hessian, foam and Dacron, then cuts, sews and fits a new cover. The sewing, the suspension work and the frame repairs are each a skill of their own. In our Eltham North workshop that spans an upholsterer with 22 years, a machinist with 30 and a restorer and French polisher with 50.
Upholstery is the padded and covered part of a piece of furniture, and the craft of building it from a bare frame. Reupholstery is doing it again on an existing piece: stripping the old cover and padding off, repairing the frame, replacing webbing, springs and foam as needed, then fitting a new cover. On the bench the difference is the strip-down: a new piece starts from bare timber, a reupholstery starts with two to six hours of pulling staples before any of that work begins.
The black fabric under a sofa is the dust cover, sold as cambric or bottom cloth. It is a lightweight non-woven polypropylene stapled across the underside to hide the webbing and springs, keep dust and dropped items out, and give the piece a tidy finish. It is not structural, it is the cheapest layer on the sofa, and cutting a small flap in it is the quickest way to see what suspension your lounge has and whether it has failed.
Hessian is a coarse woven jute cloth stretched over the springs or webbing to stop the padding above it dropping down into the suspension. It is the floor of the seat that the foam or traditional filling sits on. A good workshop uses a heavy grade, around 340 grams per square metre, because light hessian wears through at the spring tops within a decade and the seat then sinks between the coils even though the springs themselves are fine.
Dacron is a sheet of bonded polyester fibre, usually 100 to 200 grams per square metre, wrapped over foam cushions and seat platforms before the cover goes on. It softens the sharp foam edge, stops the cover rubbing directly on the foam, and fills the cover so it looks plump instead of boxy. It flattens within one to three years of daily use, which is why a seat often feels flat while the foam underneath is still in good condition.
Corner blocks are triangular hardwood blocks glued and screwed across the inside of each corner of a sofa frame so the rails cannot twist or rack apart under load. A well-built three-seater has six to eight of them. Budget and flat-pack frames often have none, relying on staples into end grain, and the first symptom is a creak when someone sits at one end. Missing corner blocks can be added during a rebuild if the rails are sound hardwood.
A modern three-seater sofa holds roughly 1,500 to 3,000 staples, driven in rows 10 to 15 mm apart along every rail, through the cover, the Dacron, the hessian and the webbing in turn. Every one has to be lifted and pulled during a strip-down because any staple left behind will cut the new cover from underneath. That is why stripping a sofa takes two to six hours and is part of what the quote has to cover.
We advise against it, and we strip to the frame on every reupholstery. A new cover stapled over the old one is thicker at every edge, the old seams print through the new fabric within months, the old padding and any smell stay inside, and nobody has checked the springs, webbing or frame underneath. Stripping to the frame is what separates a reupholstery job from a cover-up. It costs hours, and those hours are where the sofa's next ten years are decided.
A sprung edge is a row of coil springs fixed along the front rail of a seat and tied to a flexible steel edge wire, so the front of the seat gives when you sit forward or perch to stand up. It is a mark of a well-made traditional seat. The alternative is a firm edge, where a padded roll of hessian sits over the front rail instead, which feels harder behind the knees and is a design choice, not a fault.
Show-wood is any part of a sofa or chair frame deliberately left exposed and finished rather than covered, such as turned legs, polished timber arms, a carved top rail or an exposed base rail. It is finished by French polishing or a modern lacquer. Because the upholstery has to come off to get at it properly, show-wood is repaired and repolished during a reupholstery rather than afterwards, which is why we keep a restorer and French polisher in the workshop.
No. Many modern sofas have no springs at all and sit the foam directly on elastic webbing, which customers call strapping. Of the sprung types, zigzag springs are the most common in couches made since the 1970s and hand-tied coil springs are standard in older and better-made pieces. Webbing-only seats are cheapest and stretch out in five to eight years. Coil springs tied nine ways last decades and are the most comfortable, so we fit them whenever the piece suits it.
Stripping is removing everything on a chair down to the bare frame: cover, Dacron, foam or traditional filling, hessian, springs and webbing, and every tack and staple that held them. It is the first stage of any reupholstery and takes two to six hours for a sofa, less for a dining chair. The point of a full strip is that the frame and suspension are checked bare, so the quote covers what the piece actually needs rather than what shows through the old cover.
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