How’s your sofa at home? Is it still looking great? Taking care of them isn’t that hard and you can easily do it at home. Here we’re sharing some furniture cleaning tips you can do for your sofas and other upholsteries.
Your couches are at risk of spills and dust daily. When you have a fur buddy at home, the more you need to clean them. Learn easy steps that’ll help you achieve a professional furniture cleaning outcome.
Steps how to do fabric furniture cleaning
Look at the cleaning code
Before washing your sofas, make sure you’ve checked their cleaning code. It’s placed there for a reason. So far, there are four codes you can see in their cleaning instructions.
- W – This means water and you can wash your upholsteries with water and soap.
- S – This means solvent and you can only clean your couches using an organic solvent. The usual materials with an “S” code are rayon, cotton, linen, silk, and wool.
- S/W – This means water or solvent. It means you can clean your furniture with either water or solvent. You have more flexibility in washing your sofas for this code.
- X – If you see this code, it tells you you cannot use any cleaning reagent for them. You just have to vacuum your sofas and ottomans with this code.
Look out for stains
If you see one, blot them immediately with cotton, a paper towel, or cloth. Never let any stains stick themselves long enough to the fabric. If you let this happen, the harder it is to remove them.
Below are some tricks on how to deal with stains on your sofas:
- You can apply white vinegar and dishwashing soap solution to the stained area. Let it sit for a few minutes. Afterward, rinse with clean water and dry up with a clean cloth.
- Mix baking soda with water until you get a paste-like mixture. Apply a small amount of it to the stained part. This paste mixture will absorb the stain, so let it sit for five minutes. Afterward, take it off and rinse with water.
- You can also buy commercial stain removers for fabric furniture.
- Furniture steam cleaning is your last course of action for stubborn stains.
Vacuum or brush off first
After removing stains, you first need to remove the excess dust and dirt on your fabric furniture. Vacuum or use a dry brush to do that. This helps you remove those first layers of dirt from your upholsteries.
Don’t forget to use the proper attachments (upholstery cleaning tool) on your vacuum to efficiently suck all those crumbs and dirt on your couch.
Follow the recommended cleaning instruction
Remember the code in the washing label? You need to obey them, otherwise, it can destroy your fabric furniture. If it’s an “S”, then you need to dry clean furniture using an organic solvent.
We use a special chemical that we sprinkle over your sofa. We let it sit there for five to fifteen minutes before we vacuum them out. This is how dry cleaning works for furniture. There’s less to zero water used, so you can expect them to dry faster than regular washing with water and soap.
Deep cleaning furniture with steam cleaning process
When you want deep cleaning for your fabric furniture, steam cleaning is the best way to do it. It thoroughly washed out all dirt inside your sofas and loveseats. Below are some steps on how it works:
- Vacuum first your sofa or upholstery.
- Spot treatment for any stains.
- Pre-treat your furniture with an appropriate treatment solution as recommended in their washing instructions.
- Prepare your steam equipment and when it’s ready, apply steam to your furniture.
- Rinse with clean water and use a wet vacuum to remove excess moisture.
- Let it dry overnight.
This is how deep furniture cleaning works. At Shiny Carpet Cleaning, we offer this service to help homeowners have peace of mind in restoring the cleanliness of their fabric furniture.
We offer a customized furniture cleaning service depending on your needs. Regardless of the materials of your furniture (e.g. wood, leather, fabric, or polyester), we can handle them.
Is Pre-treatment necessary for cleaning cloth furniture?
Have you experienced seeing lots of muddy paw prints and crumbs on your sofa? That’s a lot of work, right? If you clean it right away without pre-treatment, it’ll end up leaving some stain residues.
We don’t want that to happen, right? To avoid that, pre-treatment is necessary. This can be done for most fabric furniture. All you have to do is to determine the recommended pre-treatment solutions in their washing instructions.
The main purpose of pre-treatment is to soften stains. That way, it’ll be easier to wash them off during steam cleaning or washing with water and soap. The average time for pre-treatment is around 30 minutes to an hour. After that, you can move forward with washing.
How long does it take for the sofa to dry?
On average, it takes around four to five hours for your sofa to completely dry. If you want to speed it up, you will have to use a wet vacuum and air movers. This equipment helps absorb excess water and moisture on your sofa.
Need help with fabric furniture cleaning?
Shiny Carpet Cleaning is your local cleaning company to call for this request. Our service location is in Northern Virginia, Washington DC, and Maryland. We offer comprehensive cleaning solutions for a reasonable rate.
We hope you had a wonderful time reading our article. In case you have questions, feel free to let us know, and we’ll do our best to answer them. You can share this article with your workmates and friends who might need them.
If you need to ask for a free quote or proposal, you can call us at 703-719-8836. You can also book an appointment online here.
