Central Upholstering

Mr. Ish is honest and kind with a wry sense of humor, and I wish I had found him earlier. He helped me sew double cord welting for my DIY chair project, and by that point, I had already done all the hard work myself. Next time, I will take my furniture to Mr. Ish. His workshop is packed with fabric, beautiful vintage chairs and other wonderful found objects. It is evident that he enjoys finding old things and making them pretty again. While he is clearly an expert at his craft, Mr. Ish gave me good advice and was supportive of my novice DIY efforts. He gave me a highly reasonable quote for my sewing job and turned it around in less than 24 hours. Highly recommend Mr. Ish!

I was so happy to find Central Upholstering. Mr Ish is very nice and kind business man that hard to find in these days. I have two pieces of cushoins that covers. I have searched on line for quite awhile and decided to go his shop which is in my neighborhood. His price is amazing reasonable compare to others. He finished my two cushoin covers within a couple of days and I am very pleased.
I am strongly recommend Central Upholstery on Ocean Ave.
Wah

The man works wonders! I had a particularly morose chair that perhaps had one too many plump derrieres on it – bottom line, the cushion needed to be repaired.
Mr. Ish was very pleasant to work with — he has a tell-​it-​like-​it-​is style and helps you weigh different options. At no point did I feel like I was being bamboozled — thank goodness I shopped around a bit and eventually found Central (the quotes I got for the repair work varied tremendously). Mr. Ish was professional from beginning to end — there need to be more business owners like him!

Had my sofa upholstered at Central Upholstery. Fabulous job and great service! Albert Ish, the owner, made everything so easy and even finished my sofa extra fast so it would be ready for my out of town visitors. I totally recommend this place!

Albert Ish is fantastic. Great work on the upholstery but he also reconditioned and moved a damaged sofa leg to the middle where it wouldn’t be visible.
The before and after on our foundling Midcentury sofa is amazing.

A true craftsman with great customer service, quality work and a sense of humor at a reasonable price.

If I could give Central Upsholstering Company 100 stars, I would! Mr. Ish is a true master craftsman, somebody who knows his trade well, a vanishing breed.
He restored a davenport, a sofa, and an easy chair for what it would have cost to get a new davenport of comparable quality, one that didn’t come off an assembly line. So now we have the three great pieces instead of the one had we decided to replace the davenport. All three were made in America and restored in America. All three can easily last for another 30 years.
The davenport was an heirloom that my husband’s grandparents bought new in the 1930s. It was in bad condition – a slipcover could not even begin to give it any life – the damn ugly purple/​mauve thing was sagging, one of the arms was bent, a spring was peeking through a hole in the faded and stained fabric. When Mr. Ish and his crew were carrying it down the hallway, pieces started to fall off. It was disintegrating before our eyes.
The other two pieces were cast offs from ex-​roommates: a 1980s reproduction of a Victorian French sofa with scrolled arms and French feet made in South Carolina. The fabric was ripping in various places, a dangerous butt-​scratching coil spring regularly attacked from underneath, and the dense frame was broken in several places. Glue? No…
The other piece was a mid-​century German style cocktail easy armchair that doubled as a fine scratching post for all our cats. Can we say, «many nicks and scratches and shreds.» Liquid wax and a slipcover? I don’t think so, Mom.
Mr. Ish painstakingly reassembled and restored the broken furniture, reupholstering them in solid luxurious fabrics we liked. (We went with the fabrics he suggested, and all the three pieces pulled together well. Be gone ugly needlepoint fabric.) Now all the pieces are like new and truly beautiful: firm and comfortable. Pure magic!
I recommend Mr. Ish highly. I have a sudden urge now to set my fourth piece of furniture on fire, so I have an excuse to have Mr. Ish transform it into a piece of art with a master’s touch as he had done with the other three pieces.
Oh, did I mention that he also has a lot of beautiful pieces for sale in his showroom? Ask him to show you his beautiful mahogany child’s chair or teak table.

Albert is a treasure! We contacted him for a small job, to re-​stuff 3 sofa cushions as an alternative to a very expensive reupholstery job. He did a great job, and then gave a quote to reupholster the sofa for a price that seemed very fair, so we went ahead. When he delivered the sofa, we were so pleased that we sent him away with 2 chairs to reupholster! I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of fabric to use, so we went to his shop a few days later and he had already selected fabrics. We went with his recommendation and are extremely pleased with the result. We are recommending him to friends and will definitely contact him for the next project.

Over the years we had acquired two vintage pieces that were diamonds in the rough; a sagging couch and a torn up arm chair. After passing by Central Upholstery’s window a few times my wife and I decided to see what the place was all about. So we gave the shop a call and set up an appointment for Mr. Ish to come by our house to check out our furniture and give us an estimate.
What a guy! Mr. Ish’s estimate was lower than we anticipated. After visiting our apartment and talking to us he was able to get a feel for our taste and make suggestions on fabric and patterns. The guy knew what he was talking about and had some great ideas. To our wonderful surprise Mr. Ish also had a lovely vintage chair that needed to be reupholstered and repaired and he just so happened to be selling it. He recognized that it was a perfect match for us and offered it to us. After seeing it we were delighted to purchase it. Especially after he recommended a brilliantly blue rare frieze fabric that he was saving for something special.
We went ahead with his suggestions and were pleased beyond words that we did!
Our old couch and chair are amazing; solid, sturdy, tight and they look so damn sharp. And the new chair that Mr. Ish sold us is a dream! Elegant, bold and beautiful! It’s so gorgeous we’re almost afraid to sit on it!
Mr. Ish is a true craftsman, extremely professional, trustworthy, patient, personable competent, and an all around great guy. He is excellent at what he does and he loves doing it. We would recommend him a hundred times over and enjoyed doing business with him. He took the fear out of a major commitment like getting one’s furniture reupholstered and made it fun, easy and extremely rewarding.

This is a classic tradesman shop. Albert Ish is the proprietor for over 40 years. Not too many places like this anywhere in the US anymore.
As a designer with lots of experience with custom fixtures and furniture, I can fully recommend the shop and the workmanship of Central.
I came to the shop with a unusual arm chair, (6 actually) that required complete disassembly, re-​upholstery and re assembly. I got it priced out at 3 different shops. Albert quoted the best price and showed the areas that needed special attention. He has pretty much seen it all after so many years. My dad was a custom tailor for 45 years, and I know how a competent and skilled craftsperson responds to bids when I see one.
He did a great job on the chairs, on time and they were done better by his shop than the original upholstery job.
To prove that his place is real «old world» there is no email, no website,
and I am the first review on Unilocal.It’s time for fellow Unilocalers to get hip
to a great local resource while he is still in business.

There is some truly beautiful furniture in this place if you look in the windows, but the doors are never open and no one appears to be in the shop. You can tell this is a master of his craft, because everything is stacked to the ceiling and there’s no cohesive effort to make things presentable. Where other people might see a nondescript junk pile, I see an Old World craftsman.
A little reorganizing and better window displays would attract business, though, especially if there were regular business hours. There are 2 orange chairs in the window that are just DYING to be in my apartment!