Dining chairs, headboards and sofas
Upholstery isn't just the sofa. In Clonsilla's family homes we're often asked to do the fabric dining chairs that take every meal, the padded headboard in the main bedroom and an armchair or two, as well as the sofa. They're all cleaned the same basic way, with a small upholstery tool on a hot-water extraction machine, but each has its own quirks.
Clonsilla's mix of settled estates and newer homes near the train line means a lot of family furniture that's been well used for a decade or more. Most of it cleans up well.
Dining chairs: food, grease and drop-in seats
Fabric dining chairs have a hard life. Food lands on the seat, hands go on the top of the back, and the front edge of the seat picks up grease from laps and clothes. In a house with children, add yoghurt, ketchup and the odd crayon.
Here's how a set is cleaned:
- Vacuum. Crumbs come out of the seams and the gap at the back of the seat.
- Pre-treat. Food marks and the greasy band along the front edge get a pre-spray suited to the fabric.
- Extract. Each seat and back is rinsed and extracted with the hand tool, keeping water off the wooden or metal frame.
- Dry. Chairs are spaced out to dry, usually quicker than a sofa because there's less padding.
Drop-in seats, the kind that lift out of the frame, are taken out so we can clean the fabric to the edges without wetting the wood. Pale chairs in a set are best cleaned together, even if only two are marked, or the clean ones stand out. A set of six or eight is a quick job once the machine is set up, and the price is per chair.
Headboards: cleaned where they stand
Fabric headboards collect hair oil, skin and make-up where heads rest, and that shows as a darker band across the middle. They're usually bolted to the bed or the wall, so we clean them in place.
Headboards often have foam or wadding directly behind a thin fabric, so they're cleaned with very little moisture and extracted hard. Buttoned and deep-quilted designs trap dust in every fold, so those are vacuumed with a narrow tool before anything else. The rest of the bed is covered while we work, and we can do the mattress too if you'd like: see mattress cleaning.
spotless.ieThe sofa, and its label
For sofas and armchairs, the care label decides what's possible. The code under the seat cushion tells us whether the fabric can take water: W means yes; WS means water or solvent, with care; S means solvent only, so no water from us; and X means vacuum only. Dining chairs and headboards often have no label at all. Then we look closely at the fabric and do a test on a part you won't see, like the underside of a seat or the back of the headboard, checking for colour on a white cloth.
We clean fabric only. Leather, faux leather and vinyl aren't something we clean.
A set of chairs, a headboard and a sofa? Send a photo of each on WhatsApp and tell us how many chairs. We'll reply with a fixed price, usually the same day.
Covers, children and pets
- Covers on. If the sofa or seat pads have zipped covers, leave them on. Machine-washing makes them shrink or fade, and they won't match the rest afterwards.
- Children. Dining chairs and sofas used by small children come up very well, especially if the marks are fresh. Keep sticky fingers off for the few hours it takes to dry.
- Pets. Hair comes off first, before any water. A cat's favourite chair can have claw pulls that cleaning won't fix.
Drying
Dining chairs and headboards dry quickly because there's less padding. Sofas and armchairs typically take a few hours, with the cushions on their edges and air movers running. Open a window, put the heating on if it's cold, and don't sit on anything until it feels dry. If you're cleaning the dining chairs before a family meal or a party, book a day or two ahead so there's no rush.
Clonsilla and the rest of Dublin 15
We cover Clonsilla, Coolmine, Hartstown, Ongar and Castleknock. The video on this page is an upholstery job in neighbouring Blanchardstown. For more local pages, see sofa cleaning in Ongar, sofa cleaning in Castleknock, our Blanchardstown upholstery page and the Dublin 15 carpet cleaning overview.
Dining chairs are priced per chair, headboards and armchairs per piece, and sofas by their seats, all agreed in writing before the visit. Ciprian, who runs Spotless, completed Prochem carpet-cleaning training in 2018, and we're fully insured. Our main upholstery cleaning page has more on fabrics, and our sofa care guide covers everyday care.
