Alamo Custom Upholstery

Alamo did a fantastically good job of recovering our old sectional couch and two old wing chairs. There is great attention to detail and perfect craftsmanship. These pieces of furniture never looked this good before. And, as a bonus, they are a very nice family who were wonderful to deal with.

I really want to patronize this place based on the other good reviews, but their phone number hasn’t picked up all week and I get a «memory full» message. Does anyone know another way to contact them short of stopping by?

I have these nice, but very plain dining chairs made by Sun Furniture in the Netherlands. After many dinner parties that required the modular leaves in the table to slide out in order to accommodate more seating, I grew attached to the table that these chairs match and bought the set from a former landlord when we moved. Also, after said dinner parties and many nights of home work sessions, and a cat who insists on sitting at the dinner table, the fabric was looking a little tired. It’s this sort of hessian /​burlap fabric, in an oatmeal ticked, off-​white color and let me tell you, it was a staining nightmare and they didn’t take well to spot cleaning.
So in my crafty hubris, I got all ambitious and decided to reupholster them myself – mmhmm. And here’s my adventure…
I did the research, watched some videos, visited several fabric stores, took home some swatches, picked out a great, durable fabric that matched my décor, even rented some tools from the local tool library. The seats really weren’t too bad. But removing the staples, even with an upholstery hardware tack lifter was time consuming and luckily the padding was in good shape. Then there’s using a regular staple gun (which I can safely and completely advise against) unless you like your hand cramping for two days after completing ONE CHAIR! So I bought an electric staple gun to speed the process which I hope to get some use out of in future projects (not related to upholstery.)
Now, the fun part is, the wood on these chair bottoms and backs aren’t straight plank, they have a slight bow or curve to them, making my first venture into pulling fabric taut and not stapling my hand or the cat to them mighty challenging. To add to the excitement, the backs of the chairs are these wooden planks with channels in the bottom and sides where the fabric gets folded over the padding and crown stapled with a pneumatic stapler. I had rented these tools as well as a small compressor with every intention of going all Bob Vila up in my house. After taking out rows of the small, tough bastard, 18-​guage crown staples from ONE SEAT BACK, and nearly rendering my hands gouged and useless, I began to do the math of time divided by my amateur expertise and decided to let someone professional handle it.
I took the backs to several places and got quotes and time frames ranging from insulting, to preposterous to outrageous. 1) $ 25 per seat back. 2) $ 150 for the set of four ($ 38/​per seat back) 3) $ 45 per seat back. Really?! $ 160? I mean, I’m doing my part to reduce, reuse, recycle and all that, but I could nearly buy another complete dining set used for that much! And Alamo, did it for $ 12 per chair and did a lovely job with quick turnaround.
Moral of the story is this – I have a new found, deep appreciation for the upholstery craft. And I may or may not venture into trying my (sore) hand at it again, but if I have a serious job to do I’m taking it to Alamo’s. They are a super nice couple working out of their basement and I felt good giving them my money (probably not nearly enough for the trouble). He remarked my chair back types were tough to do, «All the staples,» he mumbled.
All the staples indeed. I am still finding castoffs all over the house. Stepping on them in the middle of the night…Eugghhh! Just take it to Alamo!

Good work (not amazing) but the price was right. Funky family-​run business that’s operated out of the owner’s basement.

Every project they have done for me is high quality, afford ably priced and quick. This is a great family owned local business that does fantastic work. Highly recommended.