Maintaining the life of your furniture's fabric will require you to keep it clean. You should think about setting household rules for kids, pets, and guests to follow. Making them eat at the dinner table will help prevent spills and a no shoes rule will keep the wear and tear to a minimum.
Even when rules are set, accidents do happen from time to time. In this case you shouldn't freak out just yet. There are some steps you can take to wash your furniture if and when they get dirty. Here are a few tips you can take to clean your sofa.
Bean Bag Sofa
The first thing you should do is remove all the cushions. That is of course if they are removable. Do not force any cushions off that were not meant to come off. You could rip or tear your furniture and permanently ruin it.
Once the cushions are out of the way, go ahead and use your vacuum to remove all the loose dirt and debris. Many vacuums come with a brush attachment that will work great on your furniture. Make sure to get inside the cracks and crevices and to vacuum the entire sofa.
Now you can go ahead and put the cushions back onto the couch so we can start the washing process. There are some commercial upholstery cleaners you can buy to clean the couch but really there is no need. Some normal laundry detergent will work just fine.
Add a little less than a fourth of a cup of detergent to luke warm water and mix well. Using an electric mixer will work best here. Mix it up until the concoction turns foamy.
Now you can take this mixture and use it to wash the parts of the couch that are dirty. You'll want to test an area on your couch first to make sure that the detergent will not fade or discolor your couch. Dab a small amount of the mixture onto a cloth and rub onto a part of the couch. Let it dry to see if it harms it. If it does not, your safe to wash away.
Go ahead and dip the cloth back into the mixture and rub it onto the couch where the dirt appears. As you start to clean, you should see the dirt begin to wipe away. You can use a spoon or scraper to scrap away the dirt and soap.
After the dirt is removed, use a clean damp cloth to rinse the rest of the soap off the couch. Repeat this process on every part of the couch that needs to be cleaned.
If the couch is real dirty or stained you may want to seek professional help. Otherwise for normal dirt and dust, this process will work for all of your cloth furniture and may save you from having to buy new furniture. You may be surprised at just how clean you can get your furniture.