How to Keep Your Upholstery Looking Good

“What do you mean I have to maintain my new sofa? I spent all this money on the thing and now it wants more of my time and attention?!”

I used to hear this all the time when I sold furniture for a living. As soon as I started to tell my clients how to care for their new upholstery, the rivers of resentment would flow. Let me share with you what I told them about why simple maintenance is not only necessary but worth the effort.

There’s your new sofa or chair reigning gloriously in your living room: the perfect shape, style and size, resplendent in the fabric that you agonized over for weeks. And yet all too often, a year later it looks as though it’s been through a bad episode of Survivor. The cushions are lumpy, the fabric is wrinkled and dingy, and everything looks crooked and unkempt.

What happened? Assuming you started with a quality piece, you didn’t remember to fluff, flip and fuss!


Fluff. Because cushions are not made of concrete, but of soft materials, they must be regularly fluffed to maintain their shape and comfort. By fluffed, I mean punched, prodded, poked and pushed around to refresh the shape and loft of the cushions … just like you do with your bed pillows when they flatten out.


Actually, fluffing can be therapeutic. When life gets frustrating, punching my cushions (rather than something less appropriate) has a positive effect, and I kill two birds with one stone!

Firmer cushions generally take less fluffing, and squishy ones filled with down take more, but any cushion that gets sat on should be fluffed at least every few days. I generally fluff mine every night just before I go to bed to keep them looking and feeling great. And it’s no big deal; it takes about two minutes.


Flip. About every two weeks, you should flip your upholstery cushions. This will ensure that they wear evenly and will help to maintain their shape. Both the seat and back cushions need this regular change to perform their best.


If your chair or sofa has an attached back cushion, this will be a bit more difficult but can still be accomplished. Attached back cushions usually have a zipper opening at the bottom, and the cushion innards can be pulled out, turned over, and reinserted.

Given my druthers, I always choose detached back cushions. They’re not only easier to maintain, but since they have two sides, they last twice as long … providing I flip them regularly.


On a three-cushion sofa, people generally avoid the center cushion like the plague. Consequently, that cushion will get the least wear. If your sofa has T-cushions (meaning they wraps around the front of each arm, as in this example), you can’t move the center cushion to the end — you can only flip it over.


But if your sofa has cushions that are all the same size and shape, the center one can be regularly rotated to the ends, greatly extending your cushion life.


Fuss. I use this word for the sake of alliteration, but by fuss I mean regular vacuuming. It’s easy to see dust on a shiny tabletop, and you’re quickly motivated to get out the feather duster. But even though you usually can’t see it, the same amount of dust has settled on your upholstery.

In this case, “Out of sight, out of mind” results in a reduction of the fabric’s life. As we sit on a dusty cushion, the dust gets down into the fibers and acts like sandpaper, causing the material to wear much more quickly.


So every time you dust your wooden furniture, remember to be just as kind to your upholstery. Get out the vacuum and give the fabric a quick once-over. I find a little handheld vacuum to be very effective and convenient.


When I was a little kid, I would look at these “under penalty of law” tags and think the police would come haul me off if I dared remove them. Lots of other people must have thought the same thing, because when I would go to check out a client’s new sofa, there was often — in front of God and everybody — the ugly tag hanging from the upholstery.

Please do remove this tag, but do not throw it away. It contains a fount of valuable information about your new upholstery, like the body and cushion content, style and fabric numbers, and delivery date. Staple it to your invoice or warranty and file it safely away. Doing this will practically guarantee you will never need it.


Do not remove the manufacturer’s tag that is adhered to the deck of your furniture. It provides the provenance of your piece. Even if you eventually reupholster it, make sure the tag is reattached.

A couple of other things: Direct sunlight is the bitter enemy of your new upholstery fabric. Ultraviolet rays are just as destructive to your piece as small children with permanent markers. Fortunately, there are alternatives to keeping your blinds permanently closed. Stain protection is one of the best investments you can make in upholstery care. I completely avoid every extended warranty offered to me by a salesperson, but even I buy stain protection. Not only will professionally applied stain protection help make your piece easier to clean, but it will help retard the effects of ultraviolet rays.

Guardian is my personal favorite stain protection brand, but be sure to ask the store where you purchase your piece what protection plan is offered.

Honestly, would you ever expect your shiny new car to maintain itself? Your new upholstery is just as needy.

More: Bulletproof Decorating: Upholstery That Stands Up to Anything

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