Grider Upholstery is a bespoke design studio and workroom known for interiors of enduring character: rooms that are deeply personal, richly layered, and made entirely by hand. Founded in 2011 and now located in the storied waterfront neighborhood of historic Port Norfolk, Virginia, the studio has built its reputation on genuine mastery of craftsmanship and an unwavering commitment to the beauty of the built environment. The work is bold in color, deliberate in pattern, and rooted in the belief that a well-made room is one of the most lasting things a person can have.
The studio’s work has been featured in Southern Living and in “Home: A Story” by Charlotte Moss. Grider Upholstery has been trusted by textile houses such as Scalamandé, Stout Textiles, and Jim Thompson to realize the full potential of their new collections for lifestyle imagery, a confidence extended only to those whose standard of craft matches the integrity of the cloth itself. Commissions are accepted selectively, and every project, however large or intimate, is given the full measure of attention it deserves.
Andrew Grider came to design through the workroom, starting as an apprentice in traditional upholstery, then spending years as an independent craftsperson behind the work before firms began seeking him out to help shape their visions rather than merely execute them.
After years of working for design firms, he enrolled in Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design with a minor in Craft and Material Studies. Research grants took him abroad to study historic textile traditions in France and at great house museums along the Atlantic seaboard and in the American South. He then pursued graduate studies in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania, where reading the room was saturated with documentation and research, ranging from the sciences of building pathology to paint stratigraphy.
Andrew is an interior designer, a formally trained artisan of fine woodworking and weaving, and a scholar of the decorative arts, a combination that is, in the truest sense, rare. The rooms Andrew creates are deliberately layered, alive with color and pattern, and informed by a depth of reference that cannot be faked or scrolled into existence. For his clients, the result is a world entirely their own.