Despite our best efforts to be neat and tidy, life can be chaotic. Especially if you’ve got little ones of the two-legged or four-legged variety! Two of the most frequent questions customers ask our upholstery experts – and we really mean most frequent – are “What upholstery fabric is best for pets?” and “What’s the best upholstery fabric for kids?”
Well, if you’re a parent or pet owner looking for new upholstered seating, you’re in luck! Here at Woodstock Furniture & Mattress Outlet, we have decades of experience in the upholstery business. Read on for our insights about the best upholstery fabric for pets and best upholstery for kids. By the end, you’ll be equipped and empowered to choose the upholstery fabric that best fits your life!
What Upholstery Fabric Is Best for Pets and Kids?
Imagine you’ve just walked into a furniture store shopping for a new sofa. Here at Woodstock Furniture & Mattress Outlet, part of our process for discovering your upholstery needs would be to ask, “Do you have any pets or small children?”
Why do we ask?
Because nobody wants to buy a new sofa, sectional, chair or loveseat just to see it get destroyed shortly afterward by a toddler or a set of muddy paws. It’s no secret that kids are messy. And dogs and cats can demolish a piece of furniture in no time. As a result, these frequently-asked questions make perfect sense. Shoppers simply want to know what the best upholstery for pets and kids is.
But the answer is extremely complicated.
The temptation here is for us to tell you, the customer, exactly what you want to hear. “Sir/ma’am, this particular upholstery fabric here is everything you could ever need to protect your living room!” We desperately want to give you the perfect solution. The silver bullet. Except it doesn’t really exist. Let us explain.
A Few Considerations About Kids, Pets & Upholstery
While some upholstery fabrics are indeed much better than others, the honest truth is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to kids or pets on the furniture. There is no perfect solution for every single person, because there are an infinite number of variables unique to you alone.
For instance, consider your answers to a few of these questions:
- How much of the day do your pets spend on your furniture?
- On a scale of Yorkie to Great Dane, how big is your dog?
- Does your cat have a history of using your furniture like its own personal scratching post?
- Is your dog or cat long-hair or short-hair? Do they shed?
- Does your dog or cat have a tendency to leave “presents” around the house for you to find?
- Is your dog crate-trained, or does it have free reign of the house while you’re away?
- Do you have pet gates to keep certain areas off-limits to animals?
- Does your dog smell? How often do you groom your dog and trim its claws?
- Are your pets generally allowed on your furniture?
Or how about these considerations for kids:
- How many kids do you have and how old are they?
- Are they old enough to clean up after themselves?
- Do you let them eat or drink in your living space or do you restrict meals and snack time to the kitchen?
- Will your kids treat your brand new sofa like a trampoline while drinking red Kool-Aid?
- Do your kids suffer from a chronic case of “Cheeto fingers”?
Okay maybe we’re getting a bit carried away, but you get the point. We could keep going down this rabbit hole all day, but ultimately it won’t accomplish anything. The truth is that only you know all the details of your life. So if you’re hunting for life-resistant upholstery, you already know what your needs are better than anyone else!
Ask This Instead — “What’s the Best Fabric for My Life?”
Here at Woodstock Furniture & Mattress Outlet, our upholstery experts will always recommend that your fabric choice should match your lifestyle and level of activity. If you’ve got small children, dogs, cats, or some other medium-to-large pet that jumps, scratches or scurries, the truth is you’ll likely wear out upholstered furniture much faster than you would otherwise. For example, one of our most senior furniture associates lovingly refers to his pets as “furniture killers”.
As a result, we always recommend performance fabrics for customers with young kids or pets. Especially if your kiddos and pets have unlimited and unsupervised access to your new upholstered seating.
[Editor’s Note: Got questions about performance fabrics? Be sure to check out our introduction to performance fabrics!]
These special fabrics offer enhanced cleanability and/or advanced protection from stains and various kinds of damage. As we discussed previously, different performance fabrics do some things better than others. Certain performance fabrics are better at protecting against stains. Some are better at fighting mold, mildew and odor-causing bacteria. Others are better at resisting fading from UV light, repelling liquids, or holding up against rips, tears and punctures.
While most performance fabrics offer advantages in multiple areas, it’s important to remember that no single fabric is perfect in every single regard. That’s why it’s important to think about which qualities are the most important to you! Refer back to the fun list of questions we talked about above. Now it’s time for you to think through some of them.
For instance, if your dog is a drool machine or your kids regularly have drinks and snacks in the living room, you should consider treated performance fabrics with a high degree of liquid repellency, like Crypton fabric. If your chief concern is fraying due to claws and teeth, a tear-resistant olefin performance fabric like Revolution fabric may be a better fit for you. If you’ve got a smelly fur-child, synthetic olefin and acrylic performance fabrics like Revolution and Sunbrella are anti-microbial and resistant to molds and bacteria.
Do You Have More Questions About Performance Fabric & What Upholstery Fabric Is Right for Your Life? Ask Us!
Now that you’re thinking about your own upholstery needs and expectations, you’ll be in a better place to figure out what works best for your kids, your pets, and your home. But if you’ve got more questions about upholstery, furniture care, performance fabric, leather, and more, you’ve come to the right place.
Woodstock Furniture & Mattress Outlet is North Georgia’s authority on upholstered furniture and our experts would love to help answer all of your upholstery questions. For more relevant info on performance fabrics and upholstery, check out the helpful resources below:
