Don’t throw out your old sofa or armchairs!

Many people don’t realize how valuable original horse-hair upholstered furniture is. Modern methods of upholstery use synthetic foam, glues and staples, and are fast, and therefore cheap.

Once the top cover is on, it looks the same, so who cares what is underneath?

We do.

At Bentley & Clive we are committed to restoring antique upholstered furniture using traditional methods and materials to retain its value. We believe in the conservation, and ‘recycling’ of older pieces of upholstered furniture to reduce environmental waste and to preserve furniture frames and materials which are far better made than many modern alternatives.

Many landfill sites are full of perfectly sound upholstery frames and valuable horse-hair upholstery. We wash all our horse-hair through a washing machine and it comes out as good as new, even if 200 years old, so hygiene is not an issue.

We believe that antique upholstery should be treated with the same respect as antique cabinet-made pieces and we aim to restore them with the same consideration for the original design.

our services also include soft furnishings and traditional caning.