Workshop · Est. 2014
Custom furniture, frame restoration and reupholstery. Toronto, Canada.
Residential · Private commissions
Bespoke hardwood pieces for private homes — from concept to delivery.
Hospitality · Contract grade
Contract-grade seating for high-volume hospitality. Stamped, serialised, guaranteed.
Craft · No shortcuts
Mortise & tenon. Full-grain leather. Hand-tied springs. The inside matches the outside.
01 · What we make
We focus on what we're good at. Every job goes through the same hands, from the first conversation to the day it leaves the shop.
Service 1
Chairs!!!, dining tables, banquettes and casegoods, designed and built to spec. Solid hardwood frames, joinery done by hand. We work from your drawings, your reference photos, or a brief on the back of a napkin.
Learn more
Service 2
If the bones are good, we'll save it. Joint repair, re-gluing, re-doweling, new springs and webbing on traditional pieces. We work on chairs, sofas, antiques and the occasional unicorn. Honest assessment first.
Learn more
Service 3
Strip-to-frame reupholstery on chairs, sofas, dining seats and headboards. Hand-cut fabric, hidden tacking, hand-stitched detail where it matters. The job takes as long as it takes — usually three to five weeks.
Learn more02 · The four standards
01
No MDF in load-bearing parts. Mortise & tenon, doweled or pegged. Kiln-dried hardwood only.
02
Hand-tied springs on traditional pieces. Sinuous wire only where it makes sense. Webbing tested under load.
03
Full-grain leather, natural-fibre fabric, oil finishes. We tell you what's underneath before you sign.
04
The bottom of the frame matters too. Sanded, stained, stamped with our shop mark and serial number.
Standard issue
Designed for high-volume hospitality. Ash frame, full-grain leather seat, contract-grade. Stamped an…
A reading chair. Down-and-feather seat, hand-stitched edge roll. Built to be sat in for hours. White…
Solid walnut or oak top, trestle base. Custom lengths from 180–360 cm. Hand-finished with oil or lac…
Cast-iron base, solid oak top. 60, 70 or 80 cm round. Stackable in storage. Ideal for hospitality se…
Solid hardwood, hand-cut dovetails, soft-close hardware. Three lengths available. Brass detail hardw…
03 · The workshop
Red Eight was started in 2014 by two upholsterers who'd spent fifteen years working other people's brands. We wanted a shop where every piece was touched by the same hands from the day the lumber arrived to the day it was loaded on the truck.
That's still how we work. Eight craftspeople. One floor. No middlemen, no sub-contracted production, no shortcuts we wouldn't put our names on.
The full storyJournal
There are four grades of leather sold to upholstery shops. Three of them shouldn't be in your living room. Here's how to read a hide before it ends up on a chair you'll regret in eighteen months.
The seat construction every upholsterer says they offer and few actually do. We break down the steps that make the price.
Not every old chair is worth saving. Here's what we look at first when a piece arrives for an assessment.
05 · Word of mouth
They saved a chair my grandmother had reupholstered fifty years ago. Down to the original spring system. I have it in my living room and it will outlive me.
We ordered forty-two chairs and a banquette. They arrived on the day they said they would, finished the way they said they'd be. That's harder to find than it should be.
I send all my restoration clients to Red Eight. They tell people the truth about what can and can't be saved, and they price it fairly.
Start a project
Send us photos and dimensions and we'll come back with an honest assessment — what can be saved, what should be rebuilt, what it'll cost. No pressure either way.
Get in touch
Send us what you have — photos, dimensions, a rough sketch, or just a description. We'll come back with an honest assessment and a fair quote.