How To Clean Your Upholstery At Home

by Shreya Bilagi | February 28, 2024 | 5 mins read

Tips on how to clean furniture upholstery at home

Want to know how to clean furniture at your home without being too harsh? Well, what are you waiting for we will show you how you can do so. 

Like we do our dusting, mopping and sweeping it’s also super important to know about how to clean furniture and keep it looking as good as new. Cleaning upholstery is not as complicated as you thought and we at Design Cafe will show you how. 

The Meaning Of Furniture Upholstery

Let’s take a look into what upholstery is, for many of you may not be aware of this word. Upholstery is padded coverings or textile fabric or any other material that is used in the making of furniture. Upholstery can also be used for home decor items like pillowcases and curtains.

Fantastic Furniture Cleaning Tips

When it comes to cleaning your furniture at home, it’s common to fret and stress when you don’t know how to go about it. We at Design Cafe have come with some furniture cleaning tips that will help you keep your furniture clean, dust-free and neat at all times. Before you start with cleaning furniture upholstery, you need to know what sort of material you’re dealing with and make sure you read the tag that comes with cleaning instructions. Some tags include certain abbreviations for instructions on how to clean furniture like: 

  • X — Means this furniture can be cleaned only with the use of a vacuum.
  • W — Means you can clean the material using water.
  • S — Means no water is to be used in the cleaning of the furniture. You’ll need a special solvent-based cleaner.
  • WS — This means you can use water or a solvent-based cleaner to clean your furniture.
A simple furniture cleaning solution at home will help you keep clean, dust-free, and it's how to clean furniture
A single-seater sofa in a light beige with amber coloured pillows beings a sense of autumn fall
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A Smart Sofa Cleaning Solution

Stain and mark removals from furniture can be a major pain, so that’s why we have come up with some sofa cleaning solutions for various upholstery furniture that are easy and quick. 

  • Fabric upholstery: To clean fabric upholstery all you need to do is mix 1/4 cup of vinegar, 3/4 cup of warm water and one tablespoon of dishwashing liquid. Add this DIY solution to a spray bottle and use this spray on stains. Once sprayed clean the stains off with clean wet cloth and then let it dry.
  • Leather upholstery: To make sure your leather upholstery is as good as new, use this solution. Mix 1/2 cup olive oil with 1/4 cup vinegar and put this DIY solution into a spray bottle. Time spray the new cleaning solution on the couch and clean it off with a dry cloth.

Synthetic upholstery: To clean synthetic upholstery make a DIY solution by mixing 1/2 cup of vinegar, 1 cup of warm water, 1/2 tablespoon of dishwashing liquid. Add this new-made solution to the spray bottle and spray it on the dirty area. Now scrub it off with a clean cloth. Mist the soiled area and scrub with a soft cloth till the stain is gone.

Sofa cleaning solution with vinegar, water, and dishwashing liquid is the best furniture cleaning tip
A frosty white sofa with pretty coloured plush pillows brig vibrance into this room

How To Dry Clean Sofa At Home

Many of you might be wondering how to dry clean your sofa at home. Good question as dry cleaning furniture at home saves quite a few bucks. You will be happy to discover that there is a way you can dry clean your sofa or fabric-based furniture at home without too much trouble.

What you need is the following: 

  • Shampoo
  • Water
  • Loofah

Now what you need to do is to add about a tablespoon of shampoo into it and mix it well. Use a loofah to get that foaming texture. Once your solution is ready, take the loofah with foam and scrub your furniture lightly and softly to clean the fabric. Once this is done, use a wet cloth and wipe off the foam. The last step is to keep the furniture out in the sun for about 2-3 hours to dry. It might take more time depending on the fabric. You can also keep it indoors under a fan and wait till it dries. So it’s as simple as this to dry clean your furniture at home. Ready to get started?

Dry clean upholstery at home quickly with shampoo, water and loofah, and it's the best tip to dry clean sofa at home
A brown sofa against a beige textured wall and off white pillows makes this living room simple yet stylish

Also, Explore more about Different Sofa Styles

How Can You Disinfect Your Sofa After Having The Flu?

The sniffles can be quite contagious, and you wouldn’t want to spread the sneezes around, especially in the current climate. So let us teach you how you can disinfect your sofa after the flu. Furniture cleaning is super important after a flue and especially after this COVID-19 breakout. It’s a must you need to take extra care of yourself and others around you at home. 

Handy Tips

1. There are many disinfectants that can be easily found in supermarkets or hardware stores that you can use on your furniture based on the kind of fabric it’s made up of. 

2. Dry clean at home using some shampoo and a loofah. Scrub your furniture gently and leave it out in the sunlight.

3. Hydrogen peroxide is great to clean furniture but you need to do a patch test just to make sure there is no colour fading involved. 

4. Keep a spray filled with water and essential oils to refresh your home as it keeps the furniture smelling great 

Easy to clean upholstery fabric with water and loofah and with fabric sofa cleaner spray disinfect the sofa
A sectional sofa in dark airforce blue with a button back and L-shaped design

This is what we at Design Cafe have come up with on how you can clean your upholstery at home. Let us know what you think! Send us an email. Can’t wait to hear from you!

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Also, read about How To Clean Wood Furniture

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Shreya Bilagi is a content writer at Design Cafe home interiors blog.

Shreya Bilagi

Shreya Bilagi is a content writer at DesignCafe who has a creative and adventurous personality. She has worked in the media for the past four years starting off as a Radio Jockey with Radio Mirchi and later an anchor on television. Her love for dogs is infinite. Art and culture, spirituality, theatre, travelling, Netflix and wine all fall under her circle of passion.

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