Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Sterling-Clum.
Tiffany, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Upholstery Girl is an unintended continuation of a legacy. Squirrel’s Hobby Shop in Frisco, TX was born in the early 1950’s and was owned and operated by my grandparents, Ray and Minnie Sterling. It started with a before and after a pair of chairs in the window of an insurance company in Frisco on downtown Main Street. The shop made the theater curtains in the original Frisco High School, pew cushions in various churches and draperies in too many homes to count. My grandparents retired around the time I was born but I grew up knowing that all the furniture in my grandparents home, they had built or reupholstered with their own hands. I got older, went to school, moved all over the world, had my own children and was a full-time mother of three. 20 years later, I found myself divorced and a single mother and moved from NY back home to Texas. My grandmother, who was 99 at the time asked me how I intended to support the kids (her family values of raising your own children was always first and foremost) and still be a full-time mother now that I had the responsibility of being a single parent? I told her I would probably start an upholstery shop here in TX but that it would take a while because I had to save up for an industrial upholstery sewing machine. She grinned a huge grin and sent me over to my Uncle’s (one of her five children) who had fully restored the extremely late model Singer Industrial machine she had used all those years ago and thus “Upholstery Girl” was born. I never started out wanting to be an upholsterer, I just wanted to be a mom but my grandmother found a way for me to do both just as she had done so many years ago. I am truly grateful for her wisdom, her faith in me, and the talent that she passed along.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Most of the struggles we have faced have been growing pains with starting a business in a small space. I started in a small portion of my 2-car garage in Mesquite, moved up to Van Alstyne and set up shop in my kitchen, then living room, the guest house, then a small building downtown and now into what folks around here call “The Old Carwash”. As the demand for upholsterers increases so has my business. Upholstery is becoming more of a lost art since many of the older upholsterers have retired or died without passing down their craft to the younger generations. I am a small company growing by leaps and bounds, needing more space to work, hire more employees to move furniture as well as branch out into offering textile samples in-house for our customers.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Upholstery Girl offers upholstery services for interior furnishings, patio, and light commercial applications. We specialize in period furnishings with good bones that were designed to be reupholstered time and time again. We do some of the newer pieces as well but our passion is geared more towards the older heirloom pieces. I believe what sets us apart from other companies is the attention to detail that we have. We match plaids and stripes perfectly, place gimp and welt joints in inconspicuous areas and line up nailhead trim. We also try to gear the customer towards choosing a fabric that will suit the chair, not just their décor which makes for a far more beautiful presentation in their home.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was the kid that would stay up until 4 am on weekends rearranging my room and painting, making curtains, bedspreads, and pillows. Drove my parents nuts especially since we shared a bedroom wall and they were quite annoyed with the noise of shuffling furniture all hours of the night. I would also go into our garage and pull all kinds of household items and furniture to stage my room.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 214-681-8672
- Email: upholsterygirl@gmail.com
- Instagram: upholsterygirl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UpholsteryGirl
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