ANSWER:
Short answer… DON’T. Just kidding. Of course I want to advocate for the spread of upholstery businesses across the nation, but to send you into that world all willy nilly would be irresponsible. There are a lot of factors you need to consider when starting a full fledged business and there are just too many layers to uncover here in this response. Seek a business coach and develop your best practices and infrastructure BEFORE you begin to take clients.
When you do decide to begin taking on clients, grow slow. Keep a on-in-one-out policy when it comes to bringing in projects. It will prevent you from getting behind and dissapoinging an entire waitlist, and it will decrease your lead times because you will be more motivated to complete a piece in order to get paid.
STAY AT HOME! If it complies with local laws and policies, stay in your home as long as you can. Overhead sucks away all of your profit. You don’t need a big cool looking warehouse to do this and profit from it. Hold out as long as you can. Focus first on building your infrastructure and your team.