Your upholstered dining chairs are things of beauty. You chose them for their colour and for the texture and depth they add to the room. They perfectly complement your reclaimed wood dining table.
And you want them to stay looking pristine next to your reclaimed wood furniture. Over time, with constant use, your upholstered dining chairs can take on a ‘used’ look. But then come the stains and the marks.
Small they may be but they detract from the beauty of the fabric, even if it is just a little and you are the only person that notices them.
Want to know how to keep your velvet dining chairs looking glamorous? Or your upholstered dining chairs looking clean and pristine?
The fabric
It is important to understand that different fabric dining chairs need slightly different treatment.
Velvet dining chairs
Smooth and somewhat decadent to the touch, when you took possession of your velvet dining chairs, your heart probably sang a little bit when you saw your dining room furniture.
And now, you want to keep them looking fantastic – and doing that is easier than you think.
- Spills – with the festive season on the doorstep, you may more than a few dinner parties and general get-togethers planned thus, when the inevitable spill happens, you need to spot clean with a water-free solvent. These are usually found in dry cleaners.
Top tip – buy a small amount of cleaner and test it on an unseen patch of the velvet to make sure it is safe to use. If it is, then put it in a handy place such as your sideboard with wine storage so you can grab it when you need to.
- Soft bristled brush – a toothbrush with soft bristles is for brushing the nap of the fabric whilst you are gently cleaning it.
Ground in stains need the be treated by a dry clean specialist.
Linen dining chairs
Linen brings a modern edge to the dining room. A woven fabric, it is incredibly durable and easy to keep clean too;
- Upholstery shampoo – invest in a good quality, branded upholstery shampoo (perform a spot test, as above, before widespread use) and use this to spot clean spills as they happen but don’t over-saturated the chair or fabric.
- Dry cleaning – if needed, slipcovers and cushions can be dry cleaned in some cases but it will lift the colour slightly, leading to slightly different shades.
All upholstered dining chairs
Keeping your upholstered dining chairs in tip-top condition means they are in great shape repel drink and food spills;
- Vacuum – but lightly. Use the upholstery tool on your vacuum and give your beautiful dining chairs an occasional vacuum to remove dirt and dust from the fabric. Concentrate on the joins but don’t be too vigorous as you could snag the fabric.
- Have a move around – even when you don’t have direct sun pouring in the window, dining room furniture is affected by UV rays. Your upholstered dining chairs are in danger of being sun-bleached if they remain in sunlight for too long so every few weeks in the summer at least, rotate your chairs so no one chair becomes a different shade to the others.
- Open the window – air-borne pollutants, like cooking smells, can become trapped in the fabric weave and so throwing open the dining room window and letting stale air out and fresh air in will help them stay smelling sweet just as they look fantastic too!