Choosing re-upholstery fabric

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get crylon fabric if you can. Also, go to calico in Arlington on the falls church border to look at fabrics and have it done.

Do not go to calico!! Their prices are ridiculous. They don’t have many fabrics either. Have it done by looney and sons in marrifirjd. Much much better. Calico doesn’t even have a work room.

[Anonymous]

Definitely plan to have the work done at Looney. Still looking around to see where to order the fabric.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Definitely plan to have the work done at Looney. Still looking around to see where to order the fabric.

Looney has tons of fabric books to look at, but they will charge you retail if you go in as a regular person. You can find better prices online at fabric.com or even joann.com. You don’t need crypton for chairs you rarely use.

[Anonymous]

Try not to visit a retailer, look at the books, and then order online. I think that's a dick move.

But it is really hard because the retail markup for fabric is so big! Like, I wouldn't mind paying a $300 fee to the store for looking at the books and ordering/receiving. But when you're doing a big project it can be thousands of dollars. You can order swatches from Decorator's Best for $5. If you have a sense of what you want, that can be a good option. Spend $50 on swatches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely plan to have the work done at Looney. Still looking around to see where to order the fabric.

Looney has tons of fabric books to look at, but they will charge you retail if you go in as a regular person. You can find better prices online at fabric.com or even joann.com. You don’t need crypton for chairs you rarely use.

My thought too. I’m reupholstering 15 yr old Ethan Allen club chairs that look brand new (except the lovely gold fabric). I don’t think I need a performance fabric but I’m seeing lots of it. I guess it doesn’t hurt.
But it is really hard to get a sense of fabric when looking online. I’d appreciate any recommendations of specific name brands or websites that you’ve gotten great fabric from.

[Anonymous]

Looking online I cannot decipher differences between $17 and $125 per yard fabric. Are there pro tips to be sure I’m getting quality without needing anything extraordinary ?

[Anonymous]

This may be TMI but here goes...

One of the ways to tell a fabric's durability is to look and see if it has a rub count/test number. There are two common references: Martindale and Wyzenbeek. Generally, for upholstery fabric that will be used in a household and experience normal household use, you will want a rub of 25,000-30,000+ using the Martindale scale, and 20,000+ for the Wyzenbeek score. To find the rub counts you will need to scan the specs for the fabric. You may see it as "Durability" or "Abrasion" or "Double Rub" or something similar.

One caveat: you cannot infer a Martindale score from a Wyzenbeek score, and vice versa. It seems tempting but the scores are different and there is no numeric correlation between the two. The Wyzenbeek score is a double rub (back and forth) while the Martindale test is a figure eight.

High performance fabrics will be in the 100,000+ range for Martindale. The trade-off for a high-performance fabric is that it is less soft and they tend to cost more. Low-performance fabrics will be in the under 15,000 range for Martindale. The trade-off for low-performance fabrics is that they will not hold up as long. That's why some fabrics are great for draperies but not very good for use on your dining room chairs or, even worse, on your sofa.

Here is an example, using Schumacher and JoAnn's sites. I love both fabrics and would use either in my home. The first fabric has a Martindale 20,000 score while the second has a Durability score of 30,000. Note that while the JoAnn's fabric doesn't say either Martindale or Wyzenbeek but at 30,000 it is sufficiently high for upholstery use under either scale. If it were me, I would use the Schumacher fabric on dining room chairs or on our living room sofa (our more formal room) but I wouldn't put it on a family room sofa, which get a lot of use because at 20,000 I don't think it would hold up to regular wear and tear in my family room. However, the second fabric, from JoAnn's, at 30,000+ would hold up and so I would use it on my family room sofa or in the dining room or living room.

https://fschumacher.com/179442

https://www.joann.com/upholstery-fabric-54in-playback-cerise%C2%A0/14445944.html

I hope the links work!

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the pro tips!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the pro tips!

You're welcome! When I was buying just for myself I could never understand why one fabric was only good for draperies but another was fine for the couch. Once I learned about the durability scoring system it all made so much more sense.

[Anonymous]

I just used West Elm performance velvet on my high-traffic sofa and it is amazing. Everything wipes off. I used a Robert Allen crypton fabric on the same sofa about two years prior, but it did not wear well at all.