Boat upholstery costs.. some educated opinions requested!!?

Question

HI. recently I purchased an older project boat, to rebuild with my father over the next few months.

I just tore out all of the older upholstery (Seats, side linings etc.). The boat measures 18ft, and will need about 80% of its seating recovered, and re-cushioned also.I would need around 6 seats and a compartment covering the engine, as well as the side panels (10ft each) completely redone. Any ideas how much I can expect to pay?

Answer 1

If you need new foam it will be expensive especially if you go for good quality.  Just to recover with average cost materials would be in the hundreds - that might not be with marine quality material.  It also depends on where you are and the services available there.  We found a good upholsterer in an area where there is a lot of boating and paid about $700 to recover cushions for our main cabin - three were about 16" x 48", three backs about the same size (no cushion in the back - covered just one side), two backs about 24" x 24" and two cushions about 24" x 24".  That included the material, which was just average material - not top quality.  Foam gets to be quite expensive.  So depending on where you are, you will run into quite a bit of money to do it well.

Answer 2

Most marine quality fabric cost about 40-50 USD per sq yard.

Depends on whether you do the sewing yourself or whether

you know any good upholsters or not.

Answer 3

you can get pricing for new seats at Boaters World .com. it may be less than redoing the old ones. labor can be very costly.

Answer 4

I know its costly.There really no other way around this,In this instance the best way is buy new seats.May be one or two a week.The right way,by a pro is the best.I have been through this very thing.It took a little while. This is very hard to do yourself.Skill is the ticket.Doing upholstery takes alot of skill.There's money in that job.