Arbiters of design reside at Florence prison

For hire: inmates who can reupholster and refinish your furniture - welting, tufting, pleating, skirting and all.

They do recliners, love seats, ottomans. They speak Queen Anne and Architectural Digest fluently.

Their work is cheap. They never take shortcuts, because they've got oodles of time. And - the men say - they upholster with love.

Here's how it all goes down: Make an appointment to bring your furniture to the Arizona Correctional Industries office in a west Phoenix business park.

Next, a customer-service agent will whisk you to her cubicle to discuss the project at hand: Pillow-back or camelback? Walnut stain or pine?

Fabric is sold on-site, but the ACI folks will tell you it's cheaper to bring your own, and even where to get it.

The sofa goes to prison, you go home, and you'll get a phone call with a quote: say $200 for a wingback armchair, plus $29 to refinish the legs. A sofa is between $400 and $700.

If you agree, the inmates get to work. They are paid 45 to 80 cents per hour. You are charged for labor and materials, plus a markup that covers overhead, transportation costs, and the salaries of the ACI staff. If the price is too high (and it rarely is), they'll send the piece back and you can come pick it up.

All the convicts in the upholstery class and work program are sex offenders.

Their workroom is behind a long string of gates in the prison's South Unit. Inside, orange-clad men huddle around sewing machines, love seats and practice quilts. They're here for 7 1/2 hours each day, talking about what's for lunch and what's on the radio and whether they like the fabric their customer picked. (Usually, no.)

Sometimes, "we keep track of guys (upholstering) on the outside," says professor and instructor Dave Lucas, 60, of Tucson. "A couple have been making a go of it, taking it to heart.

"Maybe," he says, "they won't come back."

The upholstery program starts as a class, then becomes a job. It's a reward for good behavior and requires an interview to get in. The prison staff looks for men with patience and a "good eye," says Lucas, who has worked at the prison for 13 years.

Lucas doesn't know the particulars of the men's criminal escapades, and "I don't want to," he says.

"They're really talented. I treat them as artists and tradesmen. Everybody's due at least one mistake, I think," Lucas says.

In his shop, they do custom work for housewives and professionals. They build children's chairs to donate to Pinal County libraries. They just refinished all the desks for the Arizona Cardinals' camp in Flagstaff. Also, all the padding for the outfield fence at the new Minnesota Twins stadium is the creation of the inmates at the Florence prison.

The prisoners can do anything you ask: repair the caning on chairs, rescue 100-year-old dining tables, and tackle worn-out recliners. They can carve a replacement for missing chair leg from scratch, even attach a bear-shaped piece of fur to the back of a leather armchair, just like a customer saw at Yellowstone. Bring them a picture from the Pottery Barn catalog, and they can bring it to life.

They measure twice and cut once. If they get something wrong, they pull it apart and do it again. It helps teach them patience, the inmates say, and helps them learn to work with others.

"If you've got a little bit of perfectionist in you," Lucas says, "it makes the work even better."

In a past life, Johnnie Lee Lewis was a tailor. His father made custom suits, and he did, too. He dabbled in upholstery. He perfected his seams.

Then he went to prison for aggravated, repeated sexual assault. He has been there eight years with another eight to go.

By day, he oversees the other prisoners in the shop. He's the best, Lucas says.

At night, in his bunk, Lewis thinks about God, but also furniture.

"I want to get more into designing things," says Lewis, 54.

"That's a dying art that no one is dabbling in anymore," Lewis says. His post-prison marketing plan is occupying most of his mind these days: He's wondering about all that gorgeous antique furniture tucked away and how he can persuade customers to "bring these things out and keep memories alive."

All of this, Lewis says, is personal. Making over furniture is "a form of rehabilitating one's mind, too - to see what's inside of him, to bring it out," he says.

Sometimes, the customers send thank-you notes.