Caring For Your Furniture
Keeping your home clean isn’t always enough to keep small stains, dust, and dirt from accumulating on your furniture. Airborne pollutants are impossible to eliminate entirely, and over time, they can slowly deaden the luster of your favorite appointments. Even though most people might not think to trust their dry cleaner with their furniture, a high-quality dry cleaning service is actually your best bet at keeping textiles looking healthy and new.
It’s important never to attempt stain removal on your own. This can spread or worsen the appearance of a spot, and result in a smelly mess of baking powder, club soda, alcohol, or vinegar. Instead, call a professional dry cleaning service. The best services will actually come out to your home and inspect the stain before attempting removal. While a little elbow grease and kitchen wisdom can go a long way, a seasoned professional will always do a better job.
You may be familiar with cotton, wool, and even silk, but modern furniture fabrics will often include challenging blends with acetate, linen, rayon, olefin, and acrylics—to say nothing of the dyes. Vintage pieces can prove even more troublesome with delicate embellishments and sensitive fabric. While the tags may offer some guidance (if you haven’t already removed them), upholstery is best left to the experts. This is especially true if the piece is an antique.
A quick guide to furniture tags: a W means the fabric can be cleaned with a water-based detergent, and an S means to use a water-free cleaner. WS means either of these will work, and X means that neither will work. Furniture with an X on the tag must be professionally cleaned, but a professional cleaner will still do a better job on any piece of furniture than you could with over-the-counter detergents.
High-efficiency particulate absorption (or HEPA) filters can keep airborne pollutants to a minimum. This will keep your furniture looking fresh for longer, although regular vacuuming and mopping remains essential.
Whether it’s a rug or drape or couch or chair, a top-tier dry cleaner can find a way to take care of it. Their resources are vast and experience extensive. It’s especially helpful when they make house calls, as cleaning a permanently-installed set of drapes can be a serious challenge to the uninitiated. A good dry cleaning service can take care of moving furniture and cleaning every textile in your home. If you ever need to restore a precious piece of upholstery without risking damage, seek out the advice of a professional.