Inside Century Furniture’s upholstery operations

In March, Home News Now visited Century Furniture’s upholstery production facilities in Hickory, North Carolina. Consisting of a 331,000 square-foot main production facility and a second 150,000-square foot boutique upholstery plant, the two facilities employ as many as 600 workers that produce more than 1,000 pieces of finished product each week for customers around the world.

These workers range from fabric cutters and sewers to frame makers and upholsterers, many of which have decades of experience in the field. Below are some images Home News Now captured during its tour of the facilities that showcase the handmade nature of the line.

A worker is seen applying fiber backing to a nearly completed sofa.
A worker cuts fabric to be used in the upholstery line
This is part of the fabric inventory on hand at the Century plant. At the time of Home News Now’s visit, the company had nearly 1,3500 rolls of fabric in inventory.
A worker operates a machine used to cut fabric patterns.
Workers input data to program this machine to cut fabric into various shapes and patterns.
A worker builds a frame at the Century upholstery plant.
Chair frames are another upholstered product built at the plant. Here a worker is seen creating a frame that will soon be ready for upholstering.
A worker is seen producing a sofa frame
More eight-way hand tying is seen in process on this sofa frame.
Chair frames are ready to be upholstered.
A worker uses a mallet to pad down fabric on a chair frame.
Leather is seen being affixed to a chair frame.
This sign commemorating the company’s 75-year anniversary this year was seen in an employee break room.
These are patterns for some of the many legs used in the Century Furniture upholstery line.

Thomas Russell

Home News Now Editor-in-Chief Thomas Russell has covered the furniture industry for 25 years at various daily and weekly consumer and trade publications. He can be reached at tom@homenewsnow.com and at 336-508-4616.

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