Sofa Maintenance Tips
Remember the excitement that you had when you first brought home the sofa from the furniture store? It’s beauty- from the material to the colouration, that spruced up the interior space? Being a large piece of furniture, it is the elephant in the room, and its sate dictates the rest of the décor. No doubt you tool k your time to select the perfect sofa that compliments your style. It also didn’t come cheap. In fact, sofas are some of the most expensive items in any room they are placed in. You want your unit to retain its elegance for long. Here are a couple of tips to enable you achieve that:
- Vacuum- a lot.
This cannot be overemphasized. The sofa handles plenty of traffic. Being the most used set of future in the household, by people and pets alike, the dust that accumulated on it, food particles, to fur and dander- allowing them to build up in the upholstery accelerates the deterioration of your sofa. The gritty particles will be ground against the material whenever someone sits on the sofa, increasing the rate of wear. Routine vacuuming is needed- at least twice a week for the average household. For those homes with kids and pets, the vacuuming should be more frequent- and also during the holiday season when you have guest over.
- Scan for and collect objects before turning on the vacuum
Don’t just jump right into it. The sofa is notorious for hiding objects between the cushions- from coins and bottle tops, to the larger toys and remotes. These get “lost” in the cushions, and one forgets about them- well apart from the remote where one will go removing all the cushions until it is found. These obstacles especially the tiny ones like the coins, can damage the vacuum cleaner. Before they get sucked into it and stuck in the component parts, it will be prudent to remove them before you proceed with the rest of the vacuuming.
- Learn the rules of your particular sofa
This is especially when it comes to dealing with the particular material. There are different kids of upholsteries. Take leather units for instance. They range from full-grain leather sofas, to top-grain, split-grain, nubuck leather, and bonded leather variations. When it comes to fabric sofas, there are both natural and synthetic types. How one deals with linen, wool and silk, will be different from how cotton polyester, acrylic and olefin are handled. Take the cleaning for instance. While water is taken to be a universal cleaning solvent, when it comes to leather sofa, it can damage the material due to its susceptibility to fluctuations in moisture levels, and there may even be water staining. Even everyday usage comes into play. For instance, while both cotton and linen are natural fabrics, cotton is durable and can withstand more wear, hence tends to be more family-friendly, while linen is suited to the adult-only areas due to its delicate nature and to avoid wrinkling and staining. Ensure that you are well versed with the dos and don’ts of your sofa, from the location- which rooms it will be suitable for, exposure to sunlight, proximity to units like the air conditioner, al through to the cleaning methods that can be safely applied on your set.
- Check the condition of the vacuum and go through the product label of solutions being used
A simple oversight can wreak havoc on your sofa. You want to ensure that the machinery being used is in proper condition before you proceed to work on your furniture. When it comes to the cleaning chemicals, first off, the products selected should be compatible with your particular type of sofa. Secondly, go through the product label and the application instructions. Aspects like dilution ratios, equipment to use it with, recommended dwelling times- how long the treatment is to be allowed on the stains or dirt spots before proceeding with the agitation/scrubbing and rinsing are key. Avoid overusing a product. Here, more is not necessarily better. Drenching the dirt spots and stains with more of the cleaning agents can lead to issues like fading of the colour of the sofa.
- Blot stains- don’t scrub them
When you spill some coffee, the kids make a mess with their milk or soda, blot up the liquid with an absorbent cloth. Do not scrub the area, as this would cause the stain to spread further and deeper into the upholstery. When dealing with the spot, start from the outside and work your way in. Remember that the spills should be dealt with as soon as possible. Struggling with stubborn stains on your set? Don’t fret. You can call in the professionals to deal with the spot, and restore the elegance to your unit.
- Let your sofa dry
Don’t be quick to hop onto it immediately after the sofa cleaning has been carried out. Well, for adults this is rather straightforward- not so much so for the kids and pets. Prevent the little ones from jumping onto the sofa while it is still damp. IN this state, the material will trap dirt faster, which includes the soiling that is on their clothes, and the dyes when it comes to items like denimwear. Allow the sofa to dry completely before letting traffic back onto it. With professional sofa cleaning services, the drying time will have been cut down dramatically, so you won’t have to wait for long. Drying systems are used after the rinsing, extracting the bulk of the moisture from the unit. The unit is then left to air dry, which takes as little as 3 hours.
This beats being reactive. Take measures to reduce the dirt that winds up on the sofas and prevent spills from happening in the first place. Napping on the sofa with soiled clothes, or your kids coming from the yard outside and hopping onto the furniture without taking off their shows- these are habits that should not be allowed. It’s also advisable to have your sofa protected with stain-proofing treatments, that come in handy in preventing stains from setting into the fabric. Conditioning the leather sofa keeps the material soft and supple, and prolongs its life.
