Interior
Upholstery Repair and Replacement
In short: Reupholstering existing RV furniture is usually better value than replacing it, because the frames are built to fit the space and any replacement has to fit an opening designed around the original.
- Typical range
- $600 to $12,000+
- Labor hours
- 5 to 60 hours
- Updated
Upholstery is the fastest way to change how an RV interior feels and it is one of the few interior jobs where the value case is genuinely clear cut.
Why recovering beats replacing
RV furniture is purpose-built for its space. A dinette is sized to an opening and usually has storage underneath. A sofa is frequently a sleeper, sometimes on a slide mechanism, and it is built to a depth the walkway allows. Theatre seating is fitted to a wall and integrated with wiring for recline motors and USB points.
A replacement piece has to fit an opening designed around the original, and the aftermarket RV furniture market is not full of better-built alternatives. Frequently it is full of worse ones.
So where the frame is sound, recovering it produces a better piece than replacing it, at lower cost, with no fitment problem.
We assess frames before recommending anything and will say when a frame has failed and replacement is the right call.
What we do
Recovering. Existing frames stripped, foam assessed and replaced as needed, new material fitted.
Repair. Torn seams, worn bolsters, failed zips, damaged cushions, broken recline mechanisms.
Foam replacement. Foam collapses long before fabric wears out, and a recovered cushion on dead foam is a firm-looking cushion that is still uncomfortable.
Custom furniture. Built to a new layout, particularly on conversions and remodels where the original layout is being changed.
Window treatments. Day and night shades, blackout, valances.
Mattresses. RV-specific sizes, which are not residential sizes despite the similar names.
Commercial seating. Driver and crew seats in trucks, buses, ambulances and municipal vehicles.
Fabric, and what survives here
The environment is harsher than a house. UV comes through large windows onto the seating for hours a day. The interior of a closed coach in a California summer reaches temperatures that degrade adhesives and foam. And everything is subject to constant movement.
Solution-dyed acrylic. Colour is in the fibre rather than on it, so it does not fade. The right answer for anything in a window.
Marine-grade vinyl. UV stable, waterproof, cleanable, tough. Excellent in wet areas and high-traffic seating.
Performance fabrics. Modern woven fabrics with high rub counts and stain resistance. Good balance of comfort and durability.
Leather. Looks and feels excellent. Dries and cracks in a dry climate without conditioning, and it gets very hot in the sun.
Standard upholstery fabric. Fine away from windows, poor in them.
The matching problem
Fabrics get discontinued quickly and the material already in your coach has faded. So a partial repair in the original pattern, even if the pattern is still available, will not match what surrounds it.
Our usual recommendation on a partial job is to recover a complete matching set rather than a single piece, so everything starts from the same point and ages together. That is a larger job and it is the one that produces an interior you are not irritated by.
What it costs
| Job | Typical range | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Dinette recovering | $600 to $1,800 | 5 to 14 |
| Sofa or sleeper recovering | $1,200 to $3,000 | 10 to 24 |
| Theatre seat set | $1,800 to $4,500 | 14 to 34 |
| Full coach interior | $5,000 to $12,000 | 35 to 60 |
| Custom-built furniture | Quoted per piece | Varies |
Labor is $210 per hour. Fabric is the other major variable and performance materials cost several times a standard fabric, which is worth knowing when comparing quotes. See the pricing page.
Alongside a remodel
Upholstery is usually done as part of a larger interior remodel, and doing it in the same visit is more efficient because the furniture is already out for flooring work.
If you are planning flooring, cabinetry and upholstery over time, doing them together costs less in total than three separate visits, since a large part of the labor on each is emptying and refitting the coach.
Foam is the part nobody budgets for
Fabric is what people look at and foam is what determines whether the result is comfortable. Foam collapses long before upholstery fabric wears out, particularly in a coach that spends months parked with the same cushions loaded in the same places.
Recovering a cushion on dead foam produces something that looks new and still feels wrong, and the owner concludes that the upholstery job was poor when the fabric work was fine. So we assess foam on every piece and price replacement into the quote rather than discovering it halfway through.
Density is the specification that matters, not thickness. High-density foam in a thinner section outlasts and outperforms a thick low-density block, and it weighs less, which matters on payload across a full coach interior. Seating that gets daily use wants a higher density than a guest dinette that is used twice a year, and pricing the whole coach at one specification either wastes money or produces a sofa that sags in two seasons.
Sleeper mechanisms and slide-mounted furniture
Sofa beds, dinette conversions and anything mounted on a slide room add complication that a straightforward recovering job does not have.
The mechanism has to keep working with the new material on it. Thicker fabric or heavier foam changes the folded dimension, and a sleeper that closed cleanly before can foul after being recovered in a heavier material. We check folded clearance during the job rather than at the end.
Furniture mounted to a slide room also has to clear the opening as the room travels, and it has to stay put while doing so. Any piece we recover on a slide gets refitted with its original retention hardware verified, because a sofa that shifts while the room is moving damages both.
Estimates are $150 and credited back against an authorized repair.
Estimates are $150 and credited back against an authorized repair.