Really Good Upholstery for a Couch

February 24, 2021 3:25 PM

I have a 10 year old sectional couch, and the claw damage from the car has gotten to be too unsightly. It’s time to reupholster! Last time, I got upholstery from Knoll because I trusted them to be long lasting and relatively stain resistant. I’ve ordered some samples from them but I wonder where else I should be looking.

Bonus points for upholstery that is more ummm... cat proof.

Located in NYC.

posted by wowenthusiast to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

From what I read, microfiber and faux suede are too smooth that cats hate them as they provide no friction and thus no feel. Maybe see if your favorite place has options made of those two types of fabrics?
posted by kschang at 3:34 PM on February 24, 2021

Maharam was the other nice commercial upholstery company we used back when I worked on such things.
posted by sepviva at 3:34 PM on February 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

Avoid microfiber. We got our sixty-year-old couch reupholstered with a nice sturdy-seeming microfiber faux suede because we had read that cats don't like to scratch it. My cats didn't purposefully scratch it much, but they inadvertently created a hole with a back claw every time they jumped off the couch. It was terribly disappointing.

I will be watching the answers to this question with interest. Right now we're covering the awful microfiber with stretchy slip covers, which are surprisingly good considering how little they cost, but eventually we want to replace the damaged upholstery with something better. It's not even very old, maybe ten years. The previous upholstery was not particularly comfortable, but it lasted for decades.
posted by chromium at 5:24 PM on February 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

If the sofa just has loose threads and snags, you'd be amazed at what a felting needle can do (image shows a couch mended by a person who could have gotten it even more perfect with a bit more time and patience).

A felting needle, available for a few bucks at any large craft / wool store, has invisible little teeny barbs all over it. You just stab the couch a lot (it will take time so settle in with a movie or a pal on the phone) and all the pulled threads will be pushed back inside the sofa and it'll look smooth again. It's like magic!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:34 PM on February 24, 2021 [3 favorites]

The maharam fabric on my about 12 year old couch has some picks on the seat cushion where the cats spend time now, but they're not too obvious like they might be on a smoother fabric, I could pull them back through with a needle if I got around to it some time, and overall it seems to have held up well. Though none of the cats I've lived with have really been furniture scratchers. I selected my fabric by getting some samples and kind of "clawing" them with my own fingernails, to try to guess what would be least tempting for a cat. I suppose you could pin some samples up to a cat tree for more authentic testing with your cat? (Ordering fabric samples in little 2-inch squares is usually inexpensive.)
posted by eviemath at 5:23 AM on February 25, 2021

On a tangent, I advise you to let your cat spend some quality time with the samples to see if any of them are particularly attractive. Our cats for some reason loved to lick the microfiber on a couple of chairs we used to have, so we'd periodically find big wet spots on them.
posted by telophase at 7:32 AM on February 25, 2021 [2 favorites]