The Upholstery Forum

Hi, I have a potential customer, who asks if he took all his seats out and brought them to me, would I be willing to take the old covers off, and put some new premade covers on. I told him I've never done this before but I would be willing to recover them for him. I just don't have any idea what I should charge. Any suggestions or advice?

Charge and hourly rate plus compensate yourself for materials.

I can already tell you that it is not a simple recover you need to do foam work and my guess is the skins will fit like garbage.

That's exactly what I was thinking about the fit! I just really don't know how long it would take me and he's wanting some kind of estimate for labor cost.

I’d walk before it starts getting complicated, unless the customer understands there a good possibility there will be extra charges depending on how they fit.

A lot depends on who made the skins. You didn't stitch them so you cannot be held responsible if the fit sucks, but the customer still has to pay for your time, it's a gamble. I have had some that had to be picked apart and heavily modified to fit at all (and the customer paid for the extra time). On the other hand we do warranty work for a Crest pontoon dealership and their factory skins are ALWAYS spot on. If you choose to take it on, be sure to give them a disclaimer. I'd estimate at least 2hrs per piece (at least double for the captain's chair(s)) and that's just for pulling staples and putting them back in. All work outside of that needs to be charged extra and i guarantee there will be complications of some sort.

I had a guy one time didnt want any one to just redo his seats he wanted to order new seat covers. When they come in he thought i guess he could just slip them on and it would be that easy ..
Well none of the slots or cut out places were cut out. He didnt have a clue about hog rings. He still had to pay us to get them put in .

I am with Rev on this one. I just see problems here.