Nothing will make you fall out of love with your sofa more quickly than flat cushions that feel uncomfortable and look untidy. A simple task that’s often overlooked, regularly plumping your cushions can make all the difference. When your sofa looks great and feels amazing to curl up on, you’ll want to keep it in your home for longer.
It’s true that some sofas are lower maintenance than others depending on the delicacy of the leather or luxury of the fabric or fillings. However, carrying out the simple steps detailed below will help to keep any sofa looking its best day after day.
Get out the vacuum
The first step in sofa care? Grab the vacuum cleaner and pick up any dust or grainy particles from the leather or fabric. If the cushions are removable, pull them off the sofa so you can get into all the edges and remove any little bits that have fallen down the cracks. If you take the time to vacuum your sofa like this at least once a week, it will help to prevent the fabric or leather on your sofa becoming damaged or worn over time so your furniture will look cleaner and last longer.
Using the vacuum can also help the cushions bounce back to shape – as you pull the vacuum head across the cushions you’ll help to loosen and separate some of the fibres in preparation for a full plumping. Ensure you use the right vacuum head for the job, such as a brush attachment, so it’s gentle on the fabric or leather.
Commence plumping
Regular plumping will bring air back into your seat cushions, which will ensure your sofa stays comfortable. This is more prevalent in ranges that have fibre fillings, but every type of seat filling, from foam and fibre toppers through to sprung core seats, need to be plumped at least once a week to keep them looking great.
First things first, remove any throws or scatter cushions from the sofa and store them carefully on another piece of furniture to avoid them getting dirty. If your sofa has removable seat or back cushions, the best plumping method for you involves removing each cushion and individually plumping them.
Take the cushion in both hands and turn and rotate it as you plump, moving the filling back towards the centre. Do this with both the seat cushions and with the back cushions if they can also be removed, and then put them back into position. Move on to any scatter cushions you may have and plump them horizontally and vertically to bring air back into the fillings, then arrange them as desired.
Plumping fixed seats and backs
Fixed seats and backs are a better option for people who might struggle to perform daily maintenance on their cushions. They’re specially made so the fillings can breathe and return to shape on their own after use, but they still need some maintenance now and again to keep them looking their best.
We like to call the best method for plumping fixed seats the “Union Jack” method – smoothing the cushions so as to redistribute the fillings and plump it back to shape. Start with your hands in the centre of the cushion and smooth outwards in opposite directions – first left and right, then top and bottom then diagonally. This will help the fillings to separate and return to their natural shape after use. Give each cushion a firm pat on the sides to invite air back into the filling, and your sofa will look as good as new.
We would recommend that you do this maintenance once a week if possible, but you can do it more often if you like, it’s entirely up to you.
Loving your sofa for years to come
There are a wealth of care and maintenance articles that can talk you through the best methods of keeping your sofa looking its best, such as how to care for your leather sofa, tackling stains in your living room and general tips on keeping your sofa looking great. We all want to enjoy relaxing comfort on our sofas year after year, so it’s always worth taking a bit of extra care with some simple plumping and cleaning daily or weekly.
You can explore all of our over 200 exclusive ranges, and find a sofa you love at sofology.co.uk
I bought a sofa from you. It has fixed cushions. I must say they started losing their shape after about 3 months. It’s now about 2 years since new and we’re thinking of buying another one because of how poorly the seat cushions have lasted. It would be nice if you could advise how to bring back some comfort.
Hi there, thanks for reaching out. If you could pop us an email over to [email protected] with the details of your query, one of our team will be able to help you further with this.
Many thanks,
Alice
Hi I have the same problem with my seats . That have completely lost their shape and I have a massive dent in the seat where it’s lost most of its shape . We’re u able to get it sorted
Good afternoon,
Sorry to hear this. If you could please send across your details we will have a look into this for you using the following link https://www.sofology.co.uk/sofology/aftersales-support
Many thanks
Can i get seats restuffed
Hi Bernadette,
It’s best to speak to our Technical team to discuss the options available to you. You can contact the team via this link https://www.sofology.co.uk/sofology/aftersales-support
Thanks