Upholstry is the work of providing furniture especially seats with padding, springs, webbing, fabric or other decorative things.
I think upholstry would be very hard work.
Yup, it actually is work. There are professionals. Theyre called upholterers and an apprentice upolsterer is sometimes referred to as an outsider or trimmer. its the real deal!
Yes, I have seen some really great work done by an upholster. 
The term upholder is sort of an old term for upholsterer but it sort of has a connotation of repairing furniture instead of decorating/creating new upholstere pieces from scratch.
I would love to be able to refinish old furniture, but I wouldn't know where to start.
Well modern upholsters employe synthetic materials like dacron and vinyl and sepentine springs so look for those items and you might find someone in real life to connect with and talk to about it!
That sounds really interesting.
Yup. older upholstry used mterials like cil springs, animal hair, coir, straw/hay, linen scrims,a nd more and was done hand by hand building each layer up. So things have definitely improved and changed over the years :) Im sure it would especially be fun for someone who likes to build, sew, or arts and crafts.
I know this kind of thing has come a long way and there are so many different styles now a days.