Living room furniture care: how to clean furniture and care for furnishings

Your Corcoran’s furniture is built to last, crafted with quality materials from top craftspeople and suppliers to ensure you’ll enjoy years of use in your sitting room, dining room, and the rest of your house. However, even the best furniture needs looking after in order to maintain its comfort, functionality, and visual appeal. Luckily, it’s easy to clean furniture and take care of your favourite pieces with a few simple steps. Read on for our guide to living room furniture care and find out how to look after your sofas, coffee tables, and more with ease. 

Note: This is a general guide on how to clean furniture and look after living room furnishings. Please adhere to manufacturer instructions for your furniture. If you have specific questions on how to best take care of your favourite pieces, get in touch! Our team can help you with care instructions for specific furniture items. 

Living room furniture care: the basics

Before you worry about how to clean sofas or how to spruce up coffee tables, there are some good and general general things you can do to look after your furniture and increase their longevity. First, when you’re positioning living room furniture in your home, try to keep it out of direct sunlight and away from direct heat sources. If you can’t avoid sunlight entirely, keep your curtains and blinds closed — at least when you’re not in the room to enjoy the sun — to protect your furniture. 

The easiest thing you can do to keep living room furniture of all types clean is to dust frequently. This doesn’t need to be a massive deep-clean project: just take a soft cloth and remove dust from wood or metal furniture or leather upholstery. Doing this often prevents grime from working its way in to your living room furniture and helps avoid the need for more intense cleaning methods.

Fluffing and plumping your cushions is another easy furniture care option that you can do as frequently as you want, maybe even every time you stand up from your sofa! Pat and shake scatters to even out the filling, rotate your seat cushions, and plump pillows and cushions to keep them looking full and fresh. 

If you clean furniture and look after your living room on a regular basis, your cleaning days will be simpler and more painless. On a daily basis, declutter, and wipe up spills as soon as they happen to prevent the need for more intensive stain removal later. Weekly, do basic dusting and hoovering — don’t worry about moving furniture, but take care of areas around sofas and tables, and underneath cushions where dust and crumbs can accumulate. Once a month or so, do a deeper clean where you move your furniture for vacuuming, and tackle other tasks like washing windows. 

Finally, reevaluate your living room on a yearly basis. Do your carpets need a professional clean? When was the last time you washed your curtains? Is there a stubborn stain on your sofa that needs attention? If you keep an eye on living room furniture cleaning throughout the year, your spring clean (or whenever you choose to do it), will be quicker and easier overall. 

Clean furniture upholstery

Sofas and other living room seating can get soiled easily thanks to their frequent use and the nature of relaxing on them. Unless you’re vigilant about not letting your family eat or drink while sitting on the couch, it’s inevitable that you’ll eventually encounter a spill or stain. Here are a few tips for cleaning fabric or leather upholstery: 

You can clean furniture with fabric upholstery using bicarbonate of soda. Not only can it neutralise unwanted odors, but it gently exfoliates your sofas to remove dirt and debris. The process is simple; just sprinkle bicarbonate of soda on the upholstery, let it sit for 30 minutes, and then hoover it up, with dirt and grime coming along with it! 

For leather upholstery, wiping with a dry microfibre cloth should remove all but the most stubborn stains. If you need extra elbow grease, dilute white vinegar thoroughly with water, and dampen the microfibre cloth before wiping. Dry thoroughly with a clean, dry cloth. 

Clean furniture with water stains

Prevention is always the best approach in taking care of your living room furniture, so to avoid water stains on coffee tables or end tables you should always use a coaster when you set down a drink. However, if you’ve already accumulated water rings, there are ways to remove them no matter what your furniture is made of. 

Glass tabletops are the easiest to clean. A solution of one part lemon juice or white vinegar and one part water will probably be strong enough to tackle stains on glass. Scrub away mineral deposits with this liquid and a microfibre cloth. Then rinse with fresh water and dry thoroughly to avoid re-staining the glass. 

You can clean furniture with metal tops using similar methods to glass, so if you’ve got an industrial-inspired coffee table, never fear. Use microfibre cloths and distilled vinegar, or sprinkle on bicarbonate of soda and scrub gently before rinsing with water and drying completely. One thing to keep in mind is that some metal furniture has a ‘grain’ just like wood, particularly stainless steel, so clean with the grain for more effective dirt removal. 

Wood furniture is the most difficult to remove water stains from, but it’s still possible to minimise the look of water stains on wooden tabletops. Create a paste with bicarbonate of soda and water and use it as a gentle exfoliant, following the wood grain but avoiding unstained surfaces. Use furniture wax afterward to reseal the finish. Toothpaste is another option with a similar result. Or, for a strange but effective DIY hack, dab the stain with full-fat mayonnaise and let sit for at least an hour. Many people believe that the oil in the mayo helps to force the water out of the stain. 

Other living room cleaning tips

Cleaning living room furniture is just the start when it comes to keeping your sitting room looking great. You’ll also want to look after other elements of the room like your carpets and window treatments. For flooring, hoovering frequently is obviously key in order to remove grit and dirt that can cause damage to carpet fibres or floor panels. If your furniture is creating indentations on rugs or carpets, place an ice cube on the dent and then gently brush the fibres back into place once it melts. 

Curtains and window treatments are also important to keep clean in your living room, because they can gather dust and stir up allergies. Dust roller blinds and curtain rods, and vacuum curtains — pay extra attention to the hem if your curtains are long, because it can collect dust from the floor. Make sure that you check the manufacturer instructions to know whether your curtains can be machine washed or if they require dry cleaning. 

Finally, you may want to occasionally consider a professional clean for your carpets, sofas, or other living room elements. Professional cleaning experts, products, and methods will help to get every speck of dirt and grime out of the space as well as dealing with stains that can’t be removed using DIY methods or basic cleaning products. Hiring a professional cleaner once a year or as needed can be a worthwhile investment in extending the lifespan of your furniture and furnishings. 

Living room furniture for all homes, available at Corcoran’s

Now that you know how to best clean furniture and care for furnishings, you can invest in high-quality pieces that you’ll be able to enjoy in your home for years to come. Shop sofas, armchairs, and other living room furniture online now, or visit your nearest Corcoran’s store to see your options in person. And again, to ensure you’re giving your furniture the optimal care it needs, refer to the manufacturer’s instructions or talk to the Corcoran’s team about the best way to look after your new pieces.