It’s the ultimate cushy job

SANDPOINT – Michael Daugherty’s custom, upholstered furniture is made for whimsical touches.

Take the tot-sized couch in his shop, for example. Red-and-yellow daisies blaze across the back. The armrests are covered in vivid green chenille.

The couch was designed for Daugherty’s 2-year-old granddaughter. He can imagine her sitting there, her fingers tracing the chenille’s textured pattern.

“I think she’ll see lots of things in it,” Daugherty says. “Birds, leaves…”

Daugherty owns Fine Art Upholstery, a company he transplanted to Sandpoint from New York three years ago.

His mission statement is as bold as the colors in his shop: “To create the most artistic and amazing upholstery pieces, using perfect pitch (the angle of the seat to the back), padding and tailoring to provide the client with a grateful experience.”

It comes with a footnote: “Being well paid.”

That’s harder to achieve in Sandpoint than in New York, but Daugherty is pleased with his progress. Sales in the shop – where he is the sole employee – average about $10,000 per month. He’d like to expand to the point of hiring an apprentice or two.

Fine Art Upholstery specializes in high-end pieces. A custom-built sofa, with coil springs and down cushions, can run $2,400. A custom-built chair sells for about $1,200. The prices reflect the hours of hand labor in each piece.

Daugherty, 49, said he followed his soul mate to North Idaho after a divorce. He left behind a network of interior design contacts, who hired him to build furniture for their clients. His New York shop, located 15 miles from Manhattan, employed three other people. The business was almost too successful, Daugherty said.

“I had people breathing down my back all the time,” he said.

In contrast, Daugherty’s Sandpoint shop is a tranquil place, with windows looking northwest to the mountains. His stepdaughter’s crayon drawings are tacked on the walls. Daugherty radiates a relaxed air, too. A bandana keeps his hair back from his face, and a half-apron covers his baggy cotton pants.

The shop sports two sewing machines – one for heavy sewing, the other for silks – electric saws and hand tools. A screened off corner is the “down room,” where Daugherty stuffs feather pillows and cushions. The shop itself alternates between carpenter’s space and sewing room.

Upholstery requires three skills: construction, cutting and tailoring. Daugherty, who is self-taught, said he learned the trade through 30 years of trial and error.

“It’s just kind of revealed to me as I go along,” he said. “I don’t want to sound mystical, but you have to stay in the moment. You have to be patient and relaxed.”

Designing the frame is the hardest part of building an upholstered chair or couch, he said. Without the right frame proportions, the padding won’t work.

“Michael’s an artist at what he does,” said Debi Cordes, owner of Eklektos Gallery and Design Center in Sandpoint. “It’s not just upholstery. You need to know scale and proportions.”

Cordes works with clients who own second or third homes on Lake Pend Oreille, or vacation condos on Schweitzer Mountain. When she needs a one-of-a kind upholstered piece – sized to a particular room or to a client’s proportions – she hires Daugherty.

“We kind of go from a sketch and a drawing, and he makes it happen,” she said.

There’s definitely a local niche market for hand-built sofas and chairs, said Andrea Levora, owner of Luminesce, a lighting and design shop in Sandpoint.

Most of the nation’s fine furniture comes out of High Point, N.C. By the time her clients add on $400 to $500 in shipping costs, Daugherty can build the same piece for a comparable price, Levora said. Plus, “If you’re taller, he can make it to your specifications.”

“He’s got a flair for the funky,” she added. “He’ll build whatever you want, but if he could build strictly what he wanted, it would be contemporary-style furniture.”

Some of the pieces Daugherty built on the East Coast bordered on avant-garde. His portfolio contains a yellow fainting couch, and a lime-and-cerise chair, both commissioned by a designer who loved color.

A five-piece, sectional sofa was Daugherty’s favorite piece. “Snaky-style,” is how he describes the shape of the low-slung beige couch. The piece was designed for two Atlanta clients, gay men with exquisite taste, he said.

Daugherty also works with an interior designer in Sun Valley. Beyond that, jobs come to his Sandpoint shop through word of mouth. Each new commission seems to trigger another, he said.

At the moment, tired-looking dining room chairs dominate his shop. Giving them a new style is a creative process, Daugherty said.

“I can make old furniture look new.”