Part 4. Cushion Care: Maintaining Hotel Furniture Cushion Upholstery

After choosing the perfect hotel seating for your hospitality establishment, you will want to ensure that your luxury furniture is cared for and maintained properly over time. Although general care of hospitality furniture is important, your seat cushion interiors and covers also require regular and ongoing maintenance. As experts in contract hospitality furniture, we have compiled this guide on best practice cushion care and maintaining hotel cushion upholstery.

General Contract Furniture Cushion Care

When it comes to general hospitality furniture cushion care, there are a range of simple and easy methods you can use:

• Turning cushions - regularly turn seat cushions to distribute wear
• Plumping – plumping is a good way to keep seat cushions in the best condition if they are made with a softer foam in a smaller boutique hotel. Plump them to help them maintain their shape (regular plumping will prevent cushion fibres binding together and becoming flat). For larger hotels, selecting a contract foam is a good way to save time and avoid the need to regularly plump
• Dry cleaning – for smaller independent hotels where there is less furniture, removable covers on the cushions of your hotel or restaurant seating should be removed for professional dry cleaning every six months
• Clean thoroughly - stains and spillages are inevitable with hotel furniture, but when it comes to how to clean furniture seat cushions, it’s important that you do not rub or soak the material of the seat. Instead, soak up the stain with an absorbent cloth before using distilled water to remove the stain. For larger hotels, there are contract fabrics available that are resistant to stains and spillages. This can avoid a lot of time spent cleaning, particularly by opting for wipe clean contract material

Types of Contract Furniture Cushion Fillings

Although general hospitality furniture cushion care is important for all hotel seating, there are a few subtle differences depending on what type of filling is chosen. If you have a restaurant sofa with fibre-filled seat cushions, your furniture care may differ slightly to that of a foam-filled hotel sofa bed. 

Feather and Down

For feather-filled cushions in luxury independent hotels, regular plumping and turning is essential. Due to the natural curl of the feather acting like a spring, feather cushions can become easily flattened and lose their shape if plumping is neglected. When it comes to plumping, you should do so vigorously to separate the feathers and infuse air back into the cushion. 

Fibre

For larger hotels, selecting a contract foam means that regular plumping is not required. For smaller, independent hotels, fibre-filled seat cushion care involves avoiding dust settling on your cushion upholstery. This is because the gritty particles can cause further wear and tear by breaking down the fibres. Using a light vacuum setting will keep your hospitality furniture in tiptop condition, alongside regular plumping and turning.

Wool

Wool has extra fibres in comparison to other furniture seat cushion fillings, meaning wool-filled cushion seats should be gently vacuumed using an upholstery attachment. This will help to maintain the structure of the cushion, whilst preventing any dust and dirt building up and causing further damage. When it comes to wool furniture cushion care, rotary brushes should be avoided, as the force of the brush can cause the wool to become misshapen.

Foam

Foam is a popular choice of seat cushion filling because it provides the firmest support. As such, foam-filled cushions keep their shape for longer and require little maintenance in comparison to other cushion seat fillings. Regular plumping and vacuuming is advisable, but because foam seat cushions can vary in density, so will the amount of plumping that is required.

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