The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation will open an exhibit entitled Southern Furniture in the fall of 1997 at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Gallery. This exhibit will examine both the depth and diversity of cabinetmaking in the south in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Two sofas recently conserved in the Upholstery Conservation Lab of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation will be included in the exhibit. The first is a c. 1790 Neoclassical sofa from a defined school of cabinetmaking in Winchester, Virginia. The second is a c. 1815-1825 Empire sofa attributed to William King, Jr. of Georgetown, District of Columbia. Neither retained any original textile upholstery material. After a brief introduction to the histories of the sofas, the paper will review the treatment of the sofas which was a collaboration between the Foundation curators and conservators. Specifically, the paper will cover the initial examination of the bare frame, and then how that resulting information was translated into the restoration of the textile upholstery materials.