Kelly's Upholstery

Kelly's Upholstery Kelly's Upholstery is a well established owner operated business since 1987. Kelly's Upholstery are craft upholsterers, not manufacturing upholsterers.

We recover furniture from antiques to contemporary pieces. We are trained in replacing coil springs, horsehair and flax stuffing through to modern foams and fillers. Our motto is to do the best job, give great service and to use the best products available for our customers.

This 3 piece Victorian suite will end up in Brisbane. Our customer used to live in the Manawatu and has inherited this f...
10/06/2026

This 3 piece Victorian suite will end up in Brisbane. Our customer used to live in the Manawatu and has inherited this furniture from his parents. I cut out all the fabric and Gabby did all the bench work. The beautiful fabric is from Warwick Fabrics. We found some writing on the back of the little grandmother chair showing it had been recovered in Napier in 1946 - we love finding information like that. Gabby wrote her name and date beside it. Now I have to work out how we are going to get them to Australia.

This chair was made in South Africa – badly. I'm sure there must be some quality upholsterers there; but based on the fu...
03/06/2026

This chair was made in South Africa – badly. I'm sure there must be some quality upholsterers there; but based on the furniture I’ve worked on from that country to date, I haven't seen them yet. Gabby and I ended up taking this right back down to the frame and starting again. I like the idea the customer came up with to use the two different fabrics - the plain green velvet for the inside panels and a patterned fabric for the outside arms and outside back. I think they go really well with the black painted wood finish.

Our customers’ father made two of these unusual small oak chairs 60 years ago. He did an amazing job, they are still so ...
27/05/2026

Our customers’ father made two of these unusual small oak chairs 60 years ago. He did an amazing job, they are still so strong and with no joint problems. The old tan vinyl is replaced with a different look now with this beautiful floral. This was the last job Zoe did before she finished working with us.

This could only happen in New Zealand – over our Christmas break we were in the South Island. While talking to a guy at ...
20/05/2026

This could only happen in New Zealand – over our Christmas break we were in the South Island. While talking to a guy at a motor camp I found out he was an upholsterer in Dunedin at Otago Furniture. Then recently I stripped this tub chair and found a label from Otago Furniture on the bottom of it. I contacted Roger and he confirmed that they made them for Ryman Health and if he'd worked on it his name and date would be there. Sure enough we found it. Quite spooky really. The fabric is from Warwick Fabrics and there are multiple patterns and colours in the range; they are very popular.

A bit of a sad message this week. Zoe finished working for us yesterday. She told me she doesn't want to leave but becau...
13/05/2026

A bit of a sad message this week. Zoe finished working for us yesterday. She told me she doesn't want to leave but because of circumstances that are out of her hands she has to. She’s been with us over 3 years now and has some amazing upholstery skills now. The confidence I see in her now is quite different to that quiet shy person who started working for us. I’m certainly going to miss her. I hope things go really well for you in the future Zoe.

I’ve worked on this small lounge chair 3 times over the years. The first time was for a respring, then back in February ...
06/05/2026

I’ve worked on this small lounge chair 3 times over the years. The first time was for a respring, then back in February 2019 I recovered it in the blue and white Warwick fabric. Our customer loves her chair so much she had worn out the seat front and the top of the arms. This time she chose this blue herringbone fabric from James Dunlop.

This classic lounge chair was handed down through 3 generations from mother to daughter. It's actually quite an old chai...
29/04/2026

This classic lounge chair was handed down through 3 generations from mother to daughter. It's actually quite an old chair, maybe around 90 years old. We found lots of horsehair and very old flock wadding in it. The lovely plum coloured velvet we recovered it in is a James Dunlop fabric.

This beautiful set of Edwardian dining chairs were recovered by Zoe in this lovely chintz fabric. Gone with the old, ver...
22/04/2026

This beautiful set of Edwardian dining chairs were recovered by Zoe in this lovely chintz fabric. Gone with the old, very hard horsehair and kapok stuffing and in with foam and tetron padding to give a more comfortable seat.

This cotton hydrangea patterned fabric is from James Dunlop and has really refreshed this small worn out tub chair. Gabb...
15/04/2026

This cotton hydrangea patterned fabric is from James Dunlop and has really refreshed this small worn out tub chair. Gabby recovered it and replaced all the webbing and padding in the seat.

How's this for a remarkable transformation - from the plain grey to this blue and white beauty! It’s the first time we'v...
08/04/2026

How's this for a remarkable transformation - from the plain grey to this blue and white beauty! It’s the first time we've buttoned a chair on the outside back and outside arms first, and then working on the inside back and arms. This is a completely opposite system to normal. It was a massive job sewing and fitting the 60 small panels for the buttoning on the outside back. As you can see we used the plain blue for the piping on the seat cushion and inside arms and finished the job off with the chair nails.

Address

397 College Street
Palmerston North
4410

Telephone

+6463570680

Website

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