You might look in your local phone book to see if there's a do-it-yourself speaker shop in the area; or seach the internet for replacement drivers. These are the actual speakers within the speaker cabinet. If you can order them and are reasonably handy, it's not too hard to replace them. I have some older Infinity speakers (1981?), and I just had to have the foam rings on the woofers replaced several years ago. (I took the woofers out of the cabinets and brought them to the shop.) It was certainly worth it to me as I like the speakers, and they still sound great. You might look around at new speakers and see if you hear anything you like better, for close to the repair price.

Marc, we, too, have Whirlpool Top loader that is 15 years old...we're looking so I wrote to whirlpool and their response is as below... Thank you for visiting the Whirlpool website, we appreciate hearing from you. There is good and bad to the newer front load washer. The good is they can clean allot of clothes in one wash and wring them out well so that they don't take long to dry. The bad is that they are made in Germany so many of the parts, when needed, have to be shipped overseas to us here. We make them in our plant in Germany. Although we continually strive to use the best components available in all our appliances, any electrical/mechanical component can malfunction, and it is impossible to predict just when this might occur. To protect our consumers against the possibility of a defect in materials and/or workmanship at the time of manufacture, we provide a warranty with our productÂs that states that we will repair or replace any part that proves to be defective within a specified period of time. It has been our experience that manufacturing defects will appear and should be reported well within warranty, at which time repairs are made at no cost to our customers. Top loaders have a much better track record. All our top loads are manufactured in our OH plants. You can't fit in as much clothes but they are the dependable ones. The transmissions are allot stronger than they used to be. If you choose a top load washer, go for the WTW5900S or WTW5800S. These washers have a three speed motor. If you want a delicate wash, you'll get it with a three speed motor. Let me give you examples on the speeds: One speed- 180 strokes per minute Two speed- 180, 120 strokes per minute Three speed- 180, 120, 90 strokes per minute I wish I could make the decision for you but ultimately, you have to get what is best for your uses. Whirlpool does stand behind all our products with a strong warranty. We assist customers out of warranty many times for different situations. No other manufacturer does that. We hope you'll choose one of our products and stay a member of our appliance family! Have a great weekend! Again, thank you for contacting Whirlpool with your shopping questions! If you have further inquiries, please feel free to reply to this email or visit our website at http://www.whirlpool.com. Whirlpool's web site offers several on-line services, such as product information, dimensions guides, owner's manuals, and installation guides, for our consumers 24 hours a day 7 days a week. End of quoted letter...I posted some of this information on this thread and someone responded that it's not all made in Ohio but in China/Mexico...I don't know why they would tell me differently when they admitted Germany for the frontloaders..but this may help in your information gathering! :) Tara

Thanks for all the suggestions and compliments! When I first heard the price to reupholster, I didn't think it was too bad, but after reading some responses here decided to pursue another option. I'm glad I did! My ex works for a large organization that also has a commercial reupholstery business and they are going to do it for me for COST! Probably between $200-300! (Glad ex and I are still friends!). Plus I can get my own fabric, and there's a huge decorator wholesale place nearby that I'll check out. Only problem with the company is that it will take probably 3-4 months to get the job done, but that's fine because I can spend the time looking for fabric. Someone asked about the broken leg--yes I do have it and it is now back on the sofa (frame was just refinished/repaired). Some people also suggested I try to keep the existing fabric--well, it really looks pretty bad in person and it's got a real 80's seafoam green thing going on. I'm really looking for a very light neutral. Twizzis, I'm leaning towards finding a different fabric I can railroad or doing the three section thing. Regarding the down-wrapped cushion--is that what is standard? I have no idea, and hadn't even proposed a down cushion to the upholsterer yet. Any idea how much more expensive a down cushion makes things? You know, I was prepared to spend quite a bit of money to get this sofa restored to its glory days. I just absolutely love it, and know that I couldn't possibly find anything like this new for less than. . .well, thousands. So I'm just delighted that I can do this inexpensively and now have more to spend getting the rest of the room in order. I'm open to any of your ideas on fabric selections. My style is traditional/english/french country and I need it to work the chair I posted. Thanks again!

DH is a pretty good hobby woodoworker (he's built lots of things for me, but no chairs). He typically uses solid items for joinery, such as biscuits, dowel pins, sometimes but rarely screws, and yes, a good wood glue (on top of the aforementioned items). Just gluing a chair leg back on, without a joiner in the center that bonds leg to body, might leave it unstable (because of weight shifting on it, etc.). Woodworking forum here would be a good place to ask. Furniture too, but it's kind of slow right now.