Let’s say your mother-in-law has purchased a brand-new shiny sofa, and has deposited her aging original one in your front room. Or you’ve scored a once-in-a-lifetime roadside find — a Louis XVI chair with a magnificent frame but questionable fabric. Or, much to your dismay, your favorite couch has become soiled, saggy or sunken.
What do you do? Do you clean the piece, reupholster it or replace it?
I sought advice from Alec Houle, who has more than 50 years’ experience cleaning carpets and upholstery. There simply isn’t much out there in the upholstery industry that he hasn’t seen.
History
Houle’s first questions when shown a sofa or a chair are, “Where did it come from? What’s its history? Did you get it from family, a friend or a stranger?”
With family or even a friend, you can get a little honest history about the piece, like the quality, the original cost, its age and what conditions it may have been subjected to. The same often holds true with a piece you obtain from a garage sale or secondhand store. But with a roadside rescue, it’s anybody’s guess what indignities your upholstered piece may have endured.
Condition
Of foremost concern is whether the piece you are pondering lived with smokers. If it did, residual smoke has gone into the fabric and is now in the linings or even the wooden frame. You may never get rid of the smell.
Second, did the sofa or chair spend time in a basement or garage? These spaces are notorious for a high level of humidity and dampness, which can result in a musty smell, which is caused by mold. Mold loves to grow on any material that comes from a plant, like linen, cotton or wood. All it needs is a temperature above 50 degrees with high humidity or moisture present. Lack of light can also accelerate its growth. So the moisture and humidity are absorbed into the wooden frame, and you have all the ideal conditions for mold growth.
The only way to deal with this is to totally strip the
Wood is my trade. I take pleasure in knocking two bits of wood together. Of course, carpentry it a far more skilled job than that. As much as I as a carpenter/joiner like constructing and repairing wooden structures and objects, don’t think carpenters just carve bits and bobs out of wood.