In most towns, cities, and metros nowadays a "sofa" has become a family member. Sofa acts as a comforter to a status symbol. When you imagine a home; whether your own "would be home" or someone else's…. you think of a hall, a kitchen, and a bedroom in your mind. Think of a hall and what do you visualize? A sofa, a small table, a TV… isn't it?
So, we have accepted the sofa as part of a family. It is probably the most used furniture at home. Where do you stretch yourself right after coming home from work place? Where do your children prefer to fight and play and watch TV and spread lazily? Where do your elders like to relax and have a look around in and outside the home? Where do they watch daily soaps and talk to relatives on phone? When homemakers have some free time between the arrivals of a milkman and a washer man where do they like to sit and have look at WhatsApp chat? Where do you make your guests comfortable? If you are young and live the nuclear city life, where do you make your friends sit at holiday gatherings? Answer to all these questions is - your beloved Sofa.
Now, look at the other side of the same coin. What is spotted first when someone is at your home? What is noticed by your neighbors, guests, maids, and other visitors most? Again it's the same: The Sofa. You get compliments for your wise or funky taste in choosing a Sofa. As per your budget, your requirements, and your taste you give special attention to Sofa in the home. Usually, we prefer to choose furniture wisely, and then make it last longer and so do we do with our Sofa. Don't we? After better research, providing a special budget, having looked at many showrooms around… that mean after spending a good amount of money, time and energy when you get a Sofa home it feels very good for some days.
After some weeks turning to months and finally rounding up to a year, your beloved comforter slowly starts gathering dust. Dust along with little pieces of cookies fallen from your little one's hands, your parents' fingerprints, your freshly put hair oil marks or little powdery pieces of face mask or mehndi, broken crayon nips to ball pen caps, un-swollen medical tablets, and little thread and fabric pieces of your party wear.… everything is collected by your Sofa. And now what does everyone notice at your home? More the sofa dust and stain marks are noticed, more the complements of choosing an item of furniture well turn to "not properly maintaining them and not being able to keep it well cleaned". Isn't it?
Along with that 'society' factor, it may also affect your mood to see a sofa with stains and stink as soon as you enter your home. It also is unhygienic, especially for infants, grandparents of old age, and sick or allergic people. There was a survey conducted by a well-famed TV channel to check what consists of most germs in a home. As per everyone’s' opinion, it could be a toilet seat. But when the samples were taken and the results were out, to everyone's surprise, toilet seats were cleaner than sofas! And yes even Sofa was not the dirtiest; the winner of the 'germ race' was “a mobile phone"! Anyway so the point here is Sofa is a piece of furniture that doesn't first come to our mind when we think of dirt, but it actually accumulates dirt and germs unknowingly.
Sofa cleaning is actually "a bit of a task". It takes a little long to deep clean it. So, such messy cleanings are undertaken before Diwali in most Indian families. "Pre Diwali" kicks Indian homemakers' moods for all sorts of deep cleaning. It's the time you say goodbye to all sorts of dirt and unpleasant odors from your home and make it clean, beautiful, and fragrant for welcoming Lakshmiji. As Diwali is just a couple of months away, this is the right time to discuss cleaning issues. So let's today have look at sofa cleaning stuff.
1. If you are given a manual of instructions for cleaning sofas along with the purchase of one, follow it.
2. If you are not given any such manual, study the material and design of the sofa to decide what type of cleaning will suit it, i.e. wet or dry cleaning.
3. If initial or all-time dry cleaning is suitable for your sofas, do contact professionals for the task.
4. If it is manageable at home then you can clean it in the following steps.
Wash cushion and other removable covers.
Dust off the sofa well.
Vacuum clean it for pulling out all those small nasty droppings.
Collect proper shampoo/ washing soda/ detergent, brushes, gloves, dusters, etc.
For removing stains, shampoo it thoroughly.
If you have sofas with legs, clean them from below as well otherwise by making them upside down you can clean them down as well as the floor below.
Use proper brushes and gloves for removing hard core stains.
Let it dry properly.
So, these are basic steps for cleaning your sofa. Not only for cleaning it occasionally but also for making it last long, proper cleaning is surely helpful. If you find the above-mentioned step-by-step procedure of cleaning a Sofa set doable at home, that's well and good. It should be deep cleaned twice a year. In rough cases when you do dry dust, vacuum clean or wash covers regularly then ‘once a year’ deep clean can also do. Hope this information will help you.
Now, what if you already know the importance of sofa cleaning and you desperately want it to be properly cleaned but certain circumstances are preventing you? We will discuss such circumstances, their professional solutions, and yes some "not to miss hacks" for deep cleaning your sofa this Diwali. So, have a look at the next blog of this series on same website.
