I have a set of occasional chairs that I adore.  They are upholstered in beige-colored linen.  I have four children.  This combination, as you can guess, is not the best for the cleanliness of my favorite chairs.  Normally, the first thing I would recommend to anyone with or without children who purchases upholstered pieces is to have them treated with a stain repellant.  It may be a little more cost initially, but it will almost always save you from headaches later on.  That said, I didn’t purchase these chairs at a store that offered stain treatment, and I didn’t treat them myself (at least not soon enough).

So they were stained.  And when I tried to clean the stain initially, it didn’t work very well.  I didn’t want to invest in having these particular pieces professionally cleaned because I believed that I could find a solution.  And so I began to research.  And because the pieces are linen, the probability of water spotting turned up time and again in my research.  Of course, the one chair had such a badly spotted seat, that I wasn’t worried about water spotting – it couldn’t look much worse than it already did.  I would suggest, however, with anyone who might try this technique at home, that you test the entire process on your furniture in an inconspicuous place first.  If it spots, I would recommend investing in a professional cleaning service.  If not, you’re in luck, because this process is almost too easy.

Simply add a few drops of liquid dish detergent to a bowl of water.  Then, using a clean rag, scrub the stained area.  Make sure that you scrub thoroughly, but don’t soak the upholstery too much.   Rinse out your rag, and go back with clean, detergent-free water, and scrub again.  Finally, pat the area dry.  Allow the upholstery to dry overnight, and with any luck you should be stain free.   Now, I will not claim that this particular process will work on all sorts of stains – obviously, tomato sauce and other such stains will probably not come out this way – but for most other stains, I’d certainly give it a try.

It worked for me! And now my favorite occasional chairs are no longer a stained embarrassment.