hideously dirty sofas - cover or clean?

sarahs999

My husband has two sofas from before we were married, when he was young and carefree and thought that cream was a good colour for furniture :eek:

So, they're really filthy. We've got a super powered steam cleaner (full on Polti Italian do-it-all thing) and it doesnt' really make much difference. We have a little boy too, who doesn't help things. THe covers aren't removable.

Is there any other amazing trick I haven't thought of to clean them? I always thought steam cleaning was the last resort and that if that didn't work you were stuffed. Alternatively I was thinking of getting some covers made, but I've no idea where to start, what they'd cost, whether it'd be worth it etc. We thought about throws but they feel so studenty and they're always coming off and looking scruffy. The sofas are good quality so we're not really into chucking them and getting new ones.

Any ideas? THanks! :T

susank

When they are good quality - maybe look in Yellow pages for a carpet/upholstery cleaning firm and price them - it will be worth it. If you have a friend with a vax - needs to be the one with a pump you can vax them but it is quite hard to do.

Elliesmum

Hi there

If they are good quality then I would look at getting a firm in as susank has suggested or if you or you have a friend with a sewing machine have a go at making some covers.

I help a friend a few years ago with the same problem. We bought some fabric off the market and we made the covers between us. Now we are not super on the sewing machine but we had an idea. We drew out the sofas measured it really carefully and then calculated how much fabric we needed.

We went down the market and bought the material and thread and it cost in total to cover a 2 seater and a 3 seater sofa around £150.00! It then took 2 full days to make the covers and cushions.

So you need to look at the costs and the effort involved. Getting a specialise cleaning firm in first will, I'm sure, be cheaper. But if you want rid of the cream - then maybe recovering is the job!

I've a 4 year old and I have cream sofas, but they are washable - come up new every time, so I'm happy to stick with them. Might not get cream next time - bought them before the LO was born!

Good luck!

taplady

My sofas are a bit like that, I have steam cleaned them but its not perfect.Cant afford to replace or recover mine so I have resorted to using throws. At least they look nice and clean now!;)

pounds_and_pensive

The one and only time I ever re-covered a sofa (it was actually a bed-settee), I made a pattern first from old sheets by pinning them to the sofa a section at a time, then cutting around them adding around an inch for seam allowance as I did so. Paper wouldn't have had the flexibility necessary for accuracy, and since some parts of the sofa aren't what they immediately seem to be (to me at least ) I'd rather do any mucking up of the whole thing with an old sheet and adjust accordingly before really getting started.

All you do then is just lay the sheet pieces on your fabric, and you've got a made-to-measure pattern for your sofa which you can always use again if you fancy a change of decor.

sarahs999

We did actually get a prof guy in once and he said that he was afraid to do it in case it came up patchy, which seemed a complete load of nonsense. And I have to say that I don't think they will have a better steam cleaner than ours as we have a special steam/vaccuum combined which cost a packet but is really brilliant.

Anyway, I've bitten the bullet and got some throws on Ebay. As someone else said, at least I can chuck them in the machine.

Thanks for your replies,

Sarah