Upholstery Cleaning in Fort Wayne
Benefits of Upholstery Cleaning
When your sofa, loveseat, recliner or favorite chair becomes dirty, your first thought might be to throw it out and replace it with something new. Your second thought might be to have it reupholstered or to use slip covers.
But if you still like the way your furniture looks, Cleaning is the Best Solution to extend the life of your furniture and keep it looking beautiful!
Imagine if we never washed our bed sheets, blankets, and pillows, our towels, or our clothing. Even if these items don’t appear to be filthy, we still wash them after use.
Dust, allergens, and viruses can make your furniture their new home, causing allergies and poor indoor air quality. When you sit on your furniture, the oils from your skin and hair stick to the fabric. If you have pets that rub up against your furniture or lay on it, they add their own oils, dander and dirt. Embarrassing odors can even develop with all of this sitting in your furniture.
The combination of all these things can cause your upholstered furniture to wear out sooner than it should.
Upholstery cleaning will improve your health and your family’s health
Upholstery cleaning will remove embarrassing spots, stains, and odors
Upholstery cleaning will extend the life of your furniture, helping you avoid costly premature replacement
Our Upholstery Cleaning Process
Inspection
During our inspection, we will determine the fiber type and style of your upholstery, furniture, or fabric piece. Our initial inspection is extremely important, as the fiber type of your furniture will affect the cleaning solutions used to get the best results. Distinctive has extensive training in the cleaning of upholstery, even with challenging fabrics such as linen and cotton. We will discuss any spots and stains in order to choose the proper cleaning solution to remove them. We will also look for any pre-existing damage to your fabric.
Pre-Conditioner
We will apply a safe, yet effective pre-conditioner to your fabric. This helps to loosen any soils, dirt, germs, pet hair, and allergens, making it easier to extract and rinse them from your fabric.
Cleaning
Our state-of-the-art cleaning equipment is mounted inside our van and is powered by the van engine. It can generate 200-250 degree hot water, strong pressure, and strong vacuum. Our cleaning tool applies cleaning solution and fresh water to the fabric and then extracts it out along with dirt, germs, pet hair, and allergens. All of the dirt and dirty water extracted from your furniture goes into a separate waste water holding tank in our van. Some companies may use a portable cleaning machine or an electric cleaning machine, which are not as powerful as Distinctive’s cleaning machine. They cannot extract the maximum amount of soil from your furniture, so they produce inferior results at best. Our cleaning technique and our technician are important. Distinctive is known for being meticulous, detailed, and thorough. Our owner, Alan Falls, has such extensive training and experience that he is a Master Certified Textile Cleaner – a certification that only 3.7% of the cleaning industry ever attains.
Expert Spot Removal
Some spots will not be removed from upholstered furniture with a standard cleaning. Distinctive has a variety of specialty spot removal solutions for challenging spots and stains. Knowing the cause of spots will help us choose the correct spot removal solution. Distinctive has attended a number of specialty spot removal classes around the USA since 2000. This training gives us the confidence to clean even challenging furniture pieces, such as linen, silk, or cotton.
Grooming
If your fabric has a nap, a grooming brush is used after cleaning to remove tool marks and nap differences. This will give your fabric a uniform appearance and help it to dry quicker.
Protector
After cleaning, it is recommend to apply a fabric protector to your furniture. This helps your furniture to stay cleaner longer and will help prevent any spots from becoming permanent stains. Learn more about fabric protector here.
Drying
We use fans while cleaning to begin drying. We will also turn on your ceiling fans and use any portable fans you have to dry your furniture as soon as possible.
Post-Inspection
After cleaning and applying protector, we will explain how the process went. We will offer furniture care and maintenance tips.
“What if my furniture is a natural fiber, like cotton, wool, linen, or silk?”
No doubt, you appreciate the quality and craftsmanship that goes into constructing these beautiful pieces of furniture.
Natural fibers can be more challenging to clean compared to synthetic fibers, such as microfiber. It is important to identify natural fibers correctly and choose the correct method of cleaning to prevent water spots or browning.
If your exquisite natural fiber furniture needs cleaned, you may not want to just hand it over to any cleaner. Very few cleaners develop the skill of cleaning fine fabric furniture, as it takes much patience, dedication and training to become a true expert. An under-trained or careless technician could easily damage or ruin your fine fabric furniture. As a result, there a very few choices for consumers when it comes to fine fabric cleaners.
Distinctive’s owner, Alan Falls, is an IICRC Master Certified Textile Cleaner. He has been cleaning high-end fabric furniture since 2000 and has attended multiple training seminars across the country on how to clean them correctly. Locally, he is known for being one of the only fine fabric specialists in North Eastern, IN. We are recommended by many furniture stores, interior designers, and re-upholsterers in the area.
Don’t trust just anyone to clean your fine fabric furniture. Trust the professionals at Distinctive! Get your free estimate here.
Upholstery Cleaning Photos
Loveseat Upholstery Cleaning – Before
Loveseat Upholstery Cleaning – After
Ottoman Upholstery Cleaning In Progress
Loveseat Upholstery Cleaning In Progress
Dining Room Chair Upholstery Cleaning – Before
Dining Room Chair Upholstery Cleaning – After
Loveseat Cleaning – Before
Loveseat Cleaning – During
Loveseat Cleaning – After
Fabric Headboard Cleaning – Before
Fabric Headboard Cleaning In Progress
Fabric Headboard Cleaning – After
What Makes Distinctive Different
Training & Experience.
Upholstery cleaning is a challenging DIY project. Different fabrics have different characteristics and some can be very challenging to clean without proper training, which Distinctive has invested in since 2000. Our owner, Alan Falls, is a Master Certified Textile Cleaner – a certification that only 3.7% of the cleaning industry ever attains.
Cleaning Technique.
The wrong cleaning technique of solutions can lead to a long list of problems such as browning or yellowing fabric, color loss, color bleeding, cleaning streaks, residue that re-soils quickly, or over-wetting. Distinctive has attended various fabric cleaning training courses across the country since 2000 that have addressed these specific problems and how to avoid them when cleaning. We have put this knowledge into practice when cleaning upholstery for thousands of happy Fort Wayne customers.
We Clean All Fabric Types.
Distinctive cares for a variety of fabrics including microfiber, ultrasuede, polyester, olefin and even challenging natural fibers like cotton, linen, silk, and wool. Most cleaning companies will not clean these challenging fibers because of the risk involved. However, Distinctive is very comfortable and experienced in cleaning these types of upholstered furniture.
Great Reputation.
Distinctive is referred by many local Fort Wayne furniture stores, interior designers and re-upholsterers. They understand the quality, detailed cleaning we provide and want to share this experience with their customers. We’ve also received multiple online reviews & positive feedback from our customers on how thrilled they were with our thorough, meticulous cleaning process.
Upholstery Cleaning Pricing
The price for furniture cleaning is based on multiple facts about the furniture, including:
- The size of the piece. Is it a sectional, sofa, loveseat, recliner, oversized chair, dining room chair, ottoman, etc.?
- The fiber type of the piece. Is it a synthetic fiber like polyester or a natural fiber like cotton, wool or linen?
- The nap of the upholstery. The presence of a nap (when you run your hand across the fiber, the fabric will appear a different color) on the furniture requires a grooming the fibers after cleaning so that they will lay the same direction for a uniform appearance.
- Additional items. Does the piece have loose back/removable cushions, throw pillows, and/or arm covers that you’d also like cleaned?
To accurately answer any questions about cleaning your upholstered furniture, an over-the-phone estimate is best. You may also text us a picture of the piece at 260-250-4664. You may also request a Free Estimate here.
Upholstery Cleaning FAQ
- Furniture manufacturers attach this tag in order to limit their liability so that they cannot be held responsible if an inexperienced cleaner ruins a piece of furniture. Unfortunately, dry cleaning is not a very effective cleaning method. However, Distinctive has the decades of experience and the latest training in wet cleaning various types of fabric and fibers. Distinctive uses the correct cleaning solutions, the furniture is not left over-wet, it is dried quickly, and the fabric is cleaned in the proper direction to ensure a successful outcome.
- After cleaning, your furniture should dry within 24 hours depending on the fiber/fabric type and the drying conditions, such as temperature, humidity and airflow. We do not recommend replacing cushions or sitting on the upholstery until it is 100% dry. We use our high-speed fans to speed up the drying process after cleaning. We recommend leaning cushions against a wall or standing upright on the furniture base to allow air to flow to all sides of the freshly cleaned cushions.
- No, this is not necessary. We will clean the cushions as they are, with the foam in place.
- No. We only clean the fabric and we take extra care not to over-wet the piece so the foam inside will not get wet. Using our three-inch cleaning hand tool helps us to be more detailed in order to accomplish this.
- We can clean furniture at your location or you may also bring it to us at our office. Our in-plant price minimum is lower than our on-site price minimum. If you only have a few small items to clean, it might be best to bring it to our office.