So those couches that looked great 10 years ago are beginning to show their age. Maybe an hour of your time would be worth it to give those old bags a fresh new kid look. Maybe you don’t want to risk doing any damage to them and want to hire a professional carpet cleaner. Either way, here is my best shot at providing some great tips to clean upholstery in your home. First, let’s take a look at the DIY method…
Clean Upholstery DIY
First things first, you need to determine what type of fabric your upholstery is. Find a tag on the couch or chair and use those free Google internet searches to see what you can come up with. You should find a letter code under a cushion with (W, S, SW, X). These correspond to what types of cleaning solvents can be used. So W is for water-based or form with distilled water (no tap). S is for solvent based cleaning agents. Mild water-free (NO WATER). SW is for solvent AND water based with distilled water (no tap). Lastly, X is for professional cleaning. Don’t mess around with these. Get a professional carpet cleaner to stop by and give you an estimate.
Next make sure you don’t get the cleaning solvents on any part of the couch or chair that isn’t upholstery. For synthetic materials, put the solvent on just a small area of a cushion that won’t be seen and see how it looks. If you are good to go, then continue on with light scrubbing and then put a small fan on it to help it dry, or you can move it outside into the sunlight. For natural materials, you probably will end up using a water based cleaner. But don’t go crazy with the cleaner. You don’t want to get it too wet. For microfiber materials, you will have it easy. They are pretty easy to clean. Leather, well, you have to be pretty diligent with this process. Here’s a how to clean leather furniture video.
Professionally Clean Upholstery
If this sounds too overwhelming or you just don’t want to bother with it, give a carpet cleaner a call and ask about your particular furniture. I would go ahead and have those codes handy so you can tell them over the phone what you are dealing with. They can probably give you a decent estimate of what it will cost and you can shop around.