The Best Upholstery Fabrics for Sofas, Couches, and Chairs

With so many choices for upholstery fabric, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed when choosing one for your sofa, couch or dining chair. The way your furniture feels, looks and holds up to use depends a lot on the fabric you choose.
If you’re buying something new, having furniture reupholstered or just upgrading, this guide will help you choose the best upholstery fabric for you.

What Do We Mean by Upholstery Fabric?

Upholstery fabric is what covers sofas, chairs, ottomans, pillows and benches. Unlike other fabrics, upholstery fabric is built to handle regular use, stop stains and always look good. Upholstery fabrics are mostly available in two main grades.

• Residential: Made for home use, these fabrics combine comfort, style and durability. Most of them are designed to stop stains and prevent fading, but they are meant for ordinary home use.
• Commercial: Made to hold up in offices, hotels and restaurants, these fabrics are long-lasting, don’t fade, are difficult to wear down and usually have extra protection against stains.

Top Choices of Fabrics for Your Couch or Sofa

It’s important to make sure the fabric for your couch or sofa is both stylish, comfortable and practical. Some of the best choices for designers are mentioned below.

• Performance fabrics: Because Crypton and Sunbrella are designed for tough use, they are ideal for families, pet owners or anyone living in a busy home. If your young kids are messy with drinks or snacks, performance fabrics keep liquids from leaving a stain, so you can easily wipe them up before they dry.
  Having these materials in your living room makes it much easier to keep it free from moisture and bacteria.
• Velvet: A sofa or couch looks and feels better with the luxurious texture velvet offers. If your goal is to make a living room feel luxurious, or you’re looking for a graceful chair, the cozy and shiny texture of velvet helps achieve that.
  Velvet makes your living space much more comfortable and cozy, as well as adding to its beauty.
• Leather: For years, people have chosen leather upholstery because it looks great and is durable. If you’re after a fashionable or rustic atmosphere, leather sofas, curtains and chairs will match any type of decor. Because leather is so tough, it lasts longer than many fabrics and small scratches frequently look attractive rather than spoiling its look.
• Microfiber: Microfiber is a favorite upholstery material because it is inexpensive, comfortable and tough. If you’re looking for something for a family room or a place where ease of cleaning matters such as a rental, microfiber is an ideal choice because it’s both soft and very hard to stain or collect pet hair.
  Since microfiber is woven from strong synthetic fibers, it usually keeps dirt out, so spills can often be wiped up before they do any harm.
• Linen: Its natural feel and easy elegance are what people value about linen. If you’re looking for a light, airy, luxury look or live in a hot climate, linen upholstery will help keep your furniture cool and make the room more stylish. The special texture and crispness of linen make every piece both interesting and comfortable.

What Makes the Best Upholstery for Dining Chairs

Because chairs at the dining table are used often and may get messy, it’s important to choose fabrics that are both strong and simple to clean.

Polyester Blends

Many homeowners and decorators choose polyester blends as upholstery for dining chairs because they provide both style and usefulness. If your kitchen is always busy and messy, using polyester blends will help you fight stains and make cleaning much simpler. 

Most of these crafted fabrics combine polyester with cotton or other fibers to copy the appearance and feel of linen or cotton, plus they are durable and easy to iron.
If you’re hosting a meal, there’s no need to worry about spills on your chairs; they’ll still look great after. Because polyester blends don’t fade easily, your clothes will still appear fresh and bright after a long time.

Faux Leather

Designers are choosing faux leather to cover dining chairs because it stands up well to heavy use. It gives you the look of real leather, but you won’t have to pay as much for it. So, if children or guests eat at your house, it’s easy to remove any food or spills from the faux leather with damp tablecloths.

Faux leather is better than fabric at keeping both smells and stains away, which helps keep your dining area clean and neat. Choosing dining upholstery material for chairs made from faux leather gives you the option to find colors and finishes that match your taste, from standard dark colors to the latest trendy pastels.

Cotton Duck

This material is well known for being strong and having a relaxed, pleasing appearance. For a farmhouse or rustic look, you should use cotton duck in your dining room. Although polyester doesn’t naturally repel stains, you can make it much better by treating it with special fabric protectors. 

If you have a fun weekend brunch where drinks and crumbs might spill, cotton duck can easily clean up after the kids, as long as it is waterproofed first. Since it lets the air in, organic cotton makes spending time together at dinner more comfortable. And since it’s so cost-effective, changing or upgrading your cushions is easy.

Detailed Explanation of the Best Upholstery Fabrics for Customers

Picking the best sofa upholstery fabric is affected mostly by your lifestyle, the environment in your home and your furniture habits. Take a look at these six fabrics to help with your search:

How to Pick the Proper Fabric for Upholstery

Making the right selection for your upholstery textile will keep your furniture looking nice, feeling good and lasting for years. Think about how you want your home to look and how you live each day when making your choice. Take a look at these factors that will help you make your decision:

Traffic Level

Fabric selection is heavily affected by how much your furniture is used. In a family living room used all the time, it’s best to use upholstery that’s strong and will resist dirt and damage. Crypton, Sunbrella and actual leather are wonderful because they don’t show damage from regular spills, having pets inside and everyday wear.

By contrast, furniture found in a formal sitting area or guest room, which isn’t used as often, can look good with more delicate and special fabrics like velvet or linen. Their appearance is amazing and chic, but you have to look after them well, since these materials don’t last as well against tears or stains.

Household Needs

Fabric choice depends a lot on who is in your home. Families with children and pets look for floor materials that are easy to clean, don’t stain easily and are durable. Microfiber and polyester mixes are perfect for these situations as they don’t allow pets to leave hair, stop stains and last against tough use, staying beautiful and comfortable.
If your home is not used a lot, or you’re designing a formal area, you could rather pick fabrics made of jacquard or silk blends. Even though they require more commitment when it comes to upkeep, you’ll get unique and comfortable rooms.

Style

What kind of look or mood you want in your room will help you decide on upholstery fabrics. A room you use casually is often most agreeable when dressed in natural, light fabrics. Because they are so light and laid-back, they help customize a room look cozy and comfortable.

Luxurious textures make a room special, and velvet, leather or woven jacquard fabrics are excellent choices for spaces made to leave a lasting impression. Because of this, these fabrics give furniture extra presence and help it become a major design feature at a fair price range.
As you pick durable fabric, think about how it matches your furniture’s style and how it fits with the colors in your room.

Color and Its Arrangement

Even though light fabrics help a room look brighter, they become dirty faster, so you may need to clean them more often. If your home is busy with pets or children around, going for dark colors, various tones or patterned fabric makes sense.

When you look at a patterned fabric by the yard, you won’t really notice wear or small stains because of the pattern, so its looks stay attractive for longer. You can see this in action when you consider a dark navy jacquard with no obvious patterns to hide stains better than a plain beige linen.

How to Take Care of Your Upholstery

Looking after your upholstery allows it to look lovely for a more extended period. Trying these methods will keep your fabric in great shape and fun to use.

• Regular vacuuming: Dust adds up, dirt builds up and pet hair falls on upholstery fabric, leading fibers to weak and their colors to fade with the years.
  Vacuuming with a soft brush attachment, about once a week, takes out particles from your carpet without damaging the fabric. This easy action helps preserve your fabric’s look and color.
• Spot cleaning: Accidents and spills will occur at some point in any workplace. The main way to stop irreversible damage is to take action swiftly and carefully. Always choose a cleaner made for your fabric and test it somewhere hidden to make sure it won’t lighten or ruin your clothes.
  Place a clean, absorbent cloth on the stain, holding it lightly and don’t rub. If you deal with a spill immediately, you will likely avoid a major stain.
• Professional cleaning: You should still have your delicate fabrics cleaned by experts every so often, even if you keep your home tidy. Experts have developed methods that get the fabric very clean without causing any harm.
  An annual or biannual cleaning by professionals can elevate your furniture’s original look and lengthen its life.
• Protectants: Using fabric protectors or stain repellents gives your furniture extra defense daily spills and stains. With these sprays, droplets roll off the material, leaving it easier to clean before the stain absorbs.
  Using protectants gives homeowners peace of mind and means less tough cleaning for surfaces kids, pets or many people touch daily. Check whether your upholstery is compatible with the protection before actually using it.

Final Thoughts: Making the Best Fabric Selection for Your Furniture

The selection of fabric for your upholstery is important for two main reasons, its appeal and how well it holds up. A quality upholstery fabric fits in with your interior, withstands stain and heavy usage and keeps its color and texture all at the same time. You should find a material that looks great, durable and keeps up with maintenance, so your furniture retains its form for many years.

Every customer at Yanmao Textile Technology CO., LTD. is different and we understand that. For this reason, we focus on making various types of upholstery fabrics that match different tastes and practical needs. With over 100 years of textile experience and our emphasis on being sustainable and fair in our work, we are ready to help you discover fabrics beyond your expectations.