A few months before we found out we were pregnant with #1 I purchased my coveted, yummy, super deep, down cushion, brown velvet sofa. Gorgeous!! In the beginning I barely let my husband sit on it, let alone eat on it. OH my, it all went to shit from there. I got a Hank and had two children in three years. My beautiful, big brown sofa now looks like a tank pulled from the front line.
In the euphoria of my second trimester I decided I wanted a bloodhound; I will first blame myself (then my best friend Sean, then my husband). When they say do not make major decisions when you are pregnant…they MEAN it! Meet Hank.
Reason I wanted a bloodhound…(this is really good), puppies are cute BUT not always cute when they grow up, but those hound faces are ALWAYS SOOOO mushy, droopy and cute, and you just wanna hug them. Until they weigh 150, eat poo, live in the sandbox and walk into your home with two 8” icicles of dirt, poo infused, frothy slime and shake it off in the core of your home, and the slime literally hangs from the ceiling and slides down the wall until it dries and u-sorbe (yes that word is made up, come over, have a glass of wine and I will show you the phenomenon). Now a u-sorbe removal requires precision and technical cleaning skills, not easy. If you need more info let me know.
So I’ll get to my point…when the frothy slime hits the velvet…let it dry, then flake it off with a dry towel (and this actually works). BUT…when the Enfamil bottle leak, spit-up, banana skid mark, Desitin buns hit the velvet…even a professional clean cannot make it good as new. Here is my insider tip…indoor/outdoor fabrics. Virtually all fabric lines (even my favorite high, high end lines) are offering some sort of indoor/outdoor options. The fabrics are bullet proof, stain proof and you can even take some out and hose them off (along with your children). Many companies even offer warranties. I actually took a sample of a beautiful cream, fuzzy, soft handed chenille poured a splash of red wine, a bit of coffee and a squirt of ketchup and left it for a few hours, and ran it under the faucet; gone, no stains!! It used to be that you could spot an outdoor fabric from a block away; beige or navy that sat like a trampoline or a bold orange strip that belonged on a lounger on the beach in Monte Carlo. Not today, I would choose some of the fabrics regardless of the practicality. I look at thousands of fabrics a month and even I am amazed at how far the fabrics have come, the designs have blurred the lines between the two.
Photos do not do them justice but you get the idea, not your grandmother’s Kelly green with white daisy patio furniture cushions. If not privy to the fact they were outdoor fabrics, no one would never know.
