7 Tips for Choosing Furniture Upholstery

The cat and your kids spent the last 10 years destroying your couch.

It's time for new upholstery.

But how do you choose the right fabric? That couch will be front and center for the next 20-30 years of your life! That's a lot of pressure!

Mumford Restoration understands. In over 40 years of restoring furniture of all kinds, we’ve walked thousands of customers through the upholstery process. 

Mumford's consultants and artisans are absolute pros at furniture upholstery and will do what's right for you and your furniture, whether it's antique or modern!

Let’s talk about your goals and considerations!

Style

In an ideal world, you’d walk into Mumford Restoration’s fabric room and immediately see the perfect fabric on page one of the first swatch sample book you see. 

In reality, it takes a bit of research to narrow your choices down and the right style for your home. 

Just take it in bite sized pieces and it will feel manageable! 

1. Patterns vs. Solids

• What size is your upholstery project? 
• How large/busy is the pattern?
• Does your favorite pattern have a coordinating solid?

It’s important to see a fabric swatch in person to really see the color as well as the size of the pattern.

On a computer or cell phone, a pattern can look larger or smaller than it is.

If you are determined to choose an upholstery fabric online, ensure that the website shows a swatch alongside a ruler. That way, you can determine the size of the pattern.

For large pieces of furniture, you might consider a solid, instead of a pattern.

Patterned fabric can overwhelm a room when it’s on a large piece of furniture like a couch or an upholstered bed frame or headboard.

For smaller pieces such as chairs or upholstered ottoman tops, a pattern can add visual interest without dominating the room. 

For the most part, each pattern book has a combination of patterns and solids that are intended to coordinate and compliment each other. 

If you love a pattern but it's not the right choice for your larger upholstered furniture, use it on a side chair!

It’s coordinating solid could be more appropriate on the nearby couch and will still work nicely with the side chair’s pattern.

2. Timeless, not Trendy

• Will you still love the pattern in 5 years? 10 years?
• How can you incorporate trends, without committing to them forever?
  

Upholstery gives you a new look. It’s exciting! Just be sure to think ahead.

Before you commit to a design fad, think about how your style will evolve over the next few years. 

A trendy pattern might seem like a welcome change, but upholstery is a long-term investment. 

Can you afford to reupholster your couch or chair if you get tired of the pattern in three years? 

We've restored and refinished pieces that customers asked to have upholstered with fabrics that were in style...at the time.

Years later, the finish is still beautiful and the fabric is still strong, but the customer is tired of the now outdated pattern. They bring the piece back in and pay to have it reupholstered in a more classic pattern.

If you are in love with a trendy pattern, consider incorporating it into throw pillows or other small decorative accents. These small items are much easier to change out if they begin to feel stale!

3. Color: Complementary or Contrasting

• What color family would you like to incorporate?
• Do you want colors to coordinate or contrast?

If you have the time, Mumford has the swatches.You could spend days casually pursuing fabric books in our fabric room!

But wouldn’t you rather focus on the right fabrics?

Mumford's consultants can help you narrow things down with 3 questions

Blue? Neutral? Brown?

You can send our consultants pictures of your home and the items you want to reupholster.

We'll look over your photos and give you some suggestions for where to start!

If you find a pattern you love, but it’s in the wrong color, just keep looking through the fabric swatch book.

There are often multiple “colorways” of a pattern.

This just means there are several versions of the same pattern, just with different colors.

Perhaps that blue floral is lovely, but you’d rather have it in red. Keep flipping through the book! 

Function 

• Will this be a seldom used arm chair or dining chair? 
• Will this be a couch that your family sits on to snack and watch TV? 
• Do you have pets or small children?
  

4. Durability

You can find the durability score on a paper card stapled to the back of each fabric swatch.

You’ll look for the “rub count.” Every swatch of fabric has its own rub count. 

The fabric manufacturer uses a machine to rub a piece of fabric back and forth. The machine counts the number of rubs it takes to cause visible wear or damage in the fabric. That number is the rub count. 

• 15,000 rubs is suitable for a dining chair you seldom use. 
• 30,000 rubs is the minimum threshold for pieces that you use every day. 
  

Most fabrics we offer are rated at 50,000 rubs or more. 

In fact, many of our fabrics rate at over 200,000 rubs, which is the standard for office furniture so you can be sure your upholstery investment will last!

Call Mumford Restoration at 919.510.6310 to learn more about choosing a durable fabric for your furniture upholstery!

5. Fabric Content

• Are you eco-conscious?
• Wondering about the merits of synthetic and natural fibers?

As much as we love natural fibers in our clothing, bedding, and other linens, they can be a problem in upholstery. 

Cotton and linen upholstery fabrics often stretch out and wear faster than synthetic fabrics.

Remember: upholstery fabrics are pulled relatively taut and have significant weight placed on them every day. That’s a lot of stress and friction!

When it comes to upholstery, we recommend synthetics such as polyester, as they tend to be more stress- and wear-resistant than natural fibers. 

Ultimately, this can contribute to more sustainable living. Because synthetic upholstery is long-wearing, it does not need to be replaced and thrown away as often as natural-fiber upholstery. 

Depending on how often you use your upholstered furniture, the upholstery could last for thirty or more years!

It’s completely up to you! Mumford Restoration’s artisans are happy to upholster your items with the fabric you choose. Just be aware that natural fibers may need to be replaced more often.

However, don’t let that deter you from using natural fibers in your curtains, pillows, and other decorative items that you interact with more gently!

6. Pre-Treated Fabrics

• Do your children or grandchildren love grape juice?
• Do you have a dog that likes to dig holes in the yard and then run inside to jump on the couch?

It's important to protect your furniture. That means being proactive!

Have you considered a stain-resistant coating for your new upholstery?

If you don't have pets or small children, you might be fine without a coating.

However, if you ARE worried about stain resistance and easy cleaning, you’ll be happy to know that some upholstery fabrics are pre-treated by their manufacturers.  Mumford Restoration has a few sample books that include factory-treated fabrics. 

Even better: Mumford can treat the fabric for you. So, if you fall in love with a fabric that was NOT given a stain-resistant coating at the factory, your love story can continue on. 

Mumford will order the required yardage, apply a stain-resistant coating for you, and then give the material to our upholsterers. 

This ensures that the material will have a professional-grade stain-resistant coating before it ever enters your home. 

This is a more reliable coating than stain resistant sprays you can buy from big-box stores.

As a bonus, it will ensure that you don’t introduce harmful chemical sprays into your living spaces. Even if you spray your items outdoors, some chemicals can continue to off-gas for several days.

7. Pets

• Did your cat shred your last couch to ribbons?
• Does your dog chew on your side chair?

When animals get bored, they often turn to chewing or clawing things with interesting textures.

Remove some of the temptation by choosing a smooth fabric, such as a microfiber. 

To further protect your couch, ensure your cats have vertical and horizontal scratching pads/posts and consider sprinkling a little catnip on these scratching surfaces. It will add some additional interest and hopefully turn their attention away from your upholstered furniture!

Dog owners have reported success with bitter apple spray and other no-chew sprays, which make upholstery taste unpleasant without harming Fido!

The First Step: Reach out to Mumford!

Call Mumford Restoration at 919.510.6310 to speak to a consultant about your furniture reupholstery!

If you’re not ready to chat today, that’s ok!

Instead, you can fill out our form and our consultants will contact you another time. You can even attach pictures of your furniture to the email!

Our consultants will be happy to talk to you about your goals and options for your project.

We have a well-stocked fabric sample room for our clients–all you have to do is schedule an appointment and we’ll set you up with tea or coffee while you look for your future upholstery.

We are glad to sit with you and chat over your options OR we can get out of your hair and let you peruse alone! 

We even allow clients to borrow a sample book for a few days to see how the fabric will look in their home.

Light fixture placement, type of lightbulbs used, and size and location of windows make each home’s light unique. What you see in our fabric sample room might be a bit different than what you have at home.

Mumford wants you to be confident in the upholstery fabric you choose!

Whatever you have in mind, Mumford will be with you every step of the way. 

Call our consultants at 919.510.6310 now to learn more and schedule a consultation! 

You can even use our online form to submit photos and request a future call or email!