Upholsterer Career
Upholsterer Career
The Real Poop
Take a look around at the room you're in. Unless you're in a jail cell (we truly hope not), you'll see chairs, couches, loveseats, ottomans, stools, or some combination of various things to sit on. Look more closely, and you'll notice they are generally padded and covered with some kind of fabric—that's upholstery. Chances are it was put together by a person, known as—try to follow us here—an upholsterer.
Yep, the person who puts fabric and stuffing on things we sit on. Upholsterers make life more comfortable for others. Imagine if all you had to sit on was wooden chairs and stone slabs. That'd be terrible.
Starting pay averages at $10 per hour, which translates to about $21,000 a year. That's if you can find someone willing to train and pay you at the same time. You might have to start working as a volunteer or apprentice and accept training as your pay for a while. It'll be worth the wait, as the median salary increases to $40,113 (source).
On top of that, a career as an upholsterer doesn't require a college degree. You won't need to worry about paying back a student loan. You can even start while in high school to see if you like it while Mom and Dad pay the bills. If you do, great—you're all set with a high school diploma and hands-on experience to start your career.
You might have the option of learning this craft at a vocational school or community college...if you can find one nearby that offers an upholstery course, that is. You'll get great hands-on experience, but you do have to pay for it. Working for free doesn't sound quite so bad now, does it?
The pay eventually does improve, topping $60,000 for highly experienced upholsterers. At this point you'll be able to cover or re-cover almost anything, from home furniture to seats on boats or in cars. You'll be a pro working with leather and vinyl as well as cottons and other fabrics.
Upholsterers are crafty people who like to work with their hands. Were you obsessed with the crafts station at summer camp? Sadly, you won't be gluing glitter to wacky pipe cleaner creations...but you will get to use scissors, needles, sewing machines (yes, you have to learn to use a sewing machine), hammers, chisels, staple guns, and other deadly implements.
We recommend you get a good night's sleep on work nights.
Patience and attention to detail are also highly recommended for this field. At first, most of the stuff you'll work on will be repetitive and tedious. But, as you gain skills and experience, you can move on to more challenging types of upholstering, such as interestingly shaped antique furniture.
Sometimes you'll need to be creative and think up solutions to mimicking materials and styles that are way outdated, Sometimes you'll mess up and have to start over. Keep in mind that "trial" and "error" are two of your best teachers.
One of the cool things about being an upholsterer is the option to be your own boss. Plan on having a real job for the first few years while you learn all the skills you need and slowly build up a client list. For example, you stock shelves at the grocery store, but you love classic cars so you take a job working weekends for an auto restoration shop. Gus (the gruff but lovable shop owner) teaches you all about tearing seats out, cutting vinyl and leather, and replacing springs and webbing.
You do some side projects for your friends here and there, and you pass your card out to everyone you can find at car shows. Pretty soon you've got a shop of your own, and you can set your own hours and take a day off when you need it. Just be prepared for the not-so-fun parts of owning a business.
You'll handle all the supply ordering and prepare job estimates. You'll also do the bookkeeping, the shop sweeping, the bill paying, the pencil sharpening, everything.
But in the end, you're doing what you love, and you might even get to pass along your business to one of your kids. Have a lot of them, to increase the odds of one of them catching the upholstery bug like you did.