Lake Chapala Mexico and Reupholstery

I thought I would share with you a very good experience we have had with reupholstering our butter colored leather sectional sofa.

We have had this sofa since 1988 and, needless to say, it was time to replace it. The normal wear and tear of 22 years, various dogs (one with exceptionally long claws), spills and 5 or 6 moves had certainly had its toll on this piece of furniture.

When the time came to finally do something about this, now, eyesore (my husband commented that and our living room looked like we were trailer trash) I set about replacing our well loved and well used sofa.

Naturally, I first went to our friends, Denise and Arthur Mcfarlane, at Arden on the carretera across from the Animal Shelter as they were having a Grand Remate Sale and there many sofas, recliners and chairs on sale. Unfortunately, most of the good pieces were already sold and the one sectional that I measured as a possibility for our living room would have reached out onto our terraza, which, clearly was not the answer. Arden does still have many pieces on sale so please check them out.

We had also heard that there were good deals to be had in Ocotlan but trying to get my husband and I together for dinner, let alone a trip to Ocotlan did not seem likely.

We then thought of reupholstering our leather sofa as it fit our space beautifully and thus began the search for someone who could carry out this task.

I had one such person come to my house and take all the measurements and I never heard from him again.

There was talk of someone in Guadalajara who could do the job but, allegedly, his prices were prohibitive.

Then, one day, my husband came home with the news that the brother of the man who served him his morning coffee was, indeed, a reputable upholsterer right here in Ajijic, Lake Chapala.

We got his number and, of course, it was out of service. A lot of people were having trouble with the registering of their cell phones at this time.

The second go around of interrogating the brother, Carlos Daniel Sanabria Navarro arrived at our home with his tape measure and proceeded to measure the sofa to recover in the same color leather.. He gave us on the spot a price to recover the entire 3 piece sectional and it was jolly expensive. We then suggested that if he could get the same color leather perhaps he could just recover the cushions and clean up any stains on the original frame, which, surprisingly enough was in great shape. This slashed the price by half and we also included reupholstering a chair into the bargain

A deal was struck on the spot and he took the cushions that very day and over the next few days came back for each of the 3 pieces and the chair. He brought us several fabric swatches to choose from for the chair.

We were, during this time, sitting on dining room chairs in the living room which did not encourage slouching and I resorted to an ottoman to get low enough to cope with my daily work on my laptop.

Within two weeks from Carlos’s first visit we now have our leather sofa back looking better than new. It is soft and comfortable and we are very happy with his work. He also came when he said he was going to come and called if he was going to be late.

We are now happily re-ensconced on our sofa and would recommend Carlos to anyone looking to update existing furniture. Carlos can be reached at 045 331 016 7991 or at his home 765-6741. His nickname is “Chino”. Feel free to use our name as a referral but we are sure he would do the same great work for any of his clients.