Need upholstery? D&G has you coveredFriday, December 10, 2010
BY CHARLES ERICKSON
Hackensack Chronicle
CORRESPONDENT
HACKENSACK — When Willy Alvarez, owner of D & G Upholstery, moved to the United States from Chile three decades ago, he was nearly 30 years old and had a wife.
The back on this piece of a sectional couch was too low compared to its sister sections, so Willy and Diego Alvarez will build up the back by adding some filler material.
PHOTOS BY CHARLES ERICKSON
The back on this piece of a sectional couch was too low compared to its sister sections, so Willy and Diego Alvarez will build up the back by adding some filler material.He took a job with an upholstery company in Bayonne, learned the trade, and within five years he was managing the shop and had seven upholsterers as subordinates. The owners were fond of Alvarez, and sponsored his application for permanent U.S. residency. When they decided to retire, they called Alvarez into an office and asked him a question.
"They said, ‘You want to buy the business?’ " Alvarez recalled recently, sitting behind the single desk in the front of his storefront shop at 12 East Camden St. in Hackensack. "‘We’re selling it for $1 million.’"
Alvarez smiled and thanked the owners for considering him within their retirement plans, but there was no way he could finance such a transaction. He worked about a year for the new owners and then opened D & G Upholstery in Hackensack in 1992.
The company, named for Alvarez’s two children, Diego and Gabriela, was a tiny enterprise compared to his previous workplace. The payroll has moved up and down since the opening, paralleling the economy.
Willy Alvarez learned the upholstery business when he emigrated from Chile to New Jersey and found work in with a Bayonne upholsterer.
Willy Alvarez learned the upholstery business when he emigrated from Chile to New Jersey and found work in with a Bayonne upholsterer.
The previous two years were terrible times at D & G Upholstery, according to Alvarez, with revenues just half what they were a few years earlier. There has been an improvement over the last 12 months, but trade remains below the levels recorded prior to the economic recession.
"We had very good years here," Alvarez said about 2003 and 2004. "Very good. I used to have three, four, sometimes five people working for me."
Alvarez has only one employee now, his son, Diego. He is 26, and he sees his future in the upholstery business.
"I’d like to," Diego Alvarez said. "I’d like to take over someday."
The north side of East Camden Street contains some disparate businesses.
D & G Upholstery’s storefront sits between a voice and data provider called Intelligence Communications Systems, and a store named Aladue Photo – which provides photography and video services, and also sells business cards, banners, posters, sports uniform tops and jeans.
The office and showroom are on the sidewalk side and occupy a small portion of the available space. In addition to the desk, there are shelves of thick-bound books containing fabric samples, and a living-room chair – reupholstered in the shop and available for sale.
Work is undertaken in the back. A large table where fabrics are measured and cut dominates the room. Furniture pieces are set atop wooden horses, which raise them off the floor and closer to the eyes and hands.
Diego Alvarez stood near a piece of a sectional couch that had been brought in for repair. The fabric on its back was pulled too tightly, which made it shorter than the other sections. The Alvarezes would loosen the back, add some filler, and the sew it shut.
"We have pliers, staple remover, scissors, air guns, hammers, basic tools," he said. "And needles for hand-stitching. Some jobs we can’t do on the machines."
He indicated the two sewing machines in a back corner.
The majority of trade comes from seven interior design houses. The Alvarezes turn a designer’s ideas and sketches into upholstered goods, but can also fabricate custom furniture, including the frames. Sometimes they use their small truck to bring products to the end users. They have entered spectacular residences while making deliveries.
"Beautiful. Mansions. Dream houses," Willy Alvarez said.
D & G Upholstery does not limit business to covering or re-covering expensive furniture. They repair family sofas and other worn fixtures owned by people whose financial assets are not great. Invoice amounts often vary considerably from one customer to the next.
"From a simple seat that costs you probably $25, $30, up to sofas that can cost you thousands of dollars, depending on the work that is involved" Willy said.
Diego Alvarez’s father is also his boss, and sometimes the men have different ideas about how to complete a job.
"I see it one way, and then he sees it the way he says is right," Diego Alvarez said, smiling. "But then when I finish it, he’s like, ‘Oh. Okay. Whatever,’"
The son still lives at home.
"We probably argue here," Willy Alvarez said, "but we try not to bring the problems to the house."
Some unusual items have emerged from D & G, including a headboard commissioned by an interior designer in Carlstadt.
"It looked like a regular chair, like a wing chair," Diego Alvarez said. "But it was a headboard."
"He’s a very good designer," Willy Alvarez said, "but he’s very strange, often. And we have to upholster those strange designs."
D & G Upholstery Inc., 12 East Camden St., Hackensack; (201) 343-0510;
http://dandgupholstery.com Hours: Monday – Friday: 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Owner: Willy Alvarez
