Have you ever looked at a broken appliance and thought to yourself "I bet that can be fixed." If so, you need to make a call to a repairs specialist. Most things can be repaired — you just have to call the right person. There are repair professionals who focus on electronics, others who focus on home components like roofs and gutters, and still others who make repairs to home appliances, exclusively. Help is a phone call away.
Even though someone else is doing the work, however, we do think it's important for you to know a bit about repairs and restoration. That's why we're providing helpful articles on this blog. Fix it to the max — we know you can!
Having water get into your home can cause a lot of damage. Not only will it destroy the construction materials in the home itself, but many furniture items can be damaged by being soaked with water. Here are some tips for saving your upholstered furniture so that you do not have to throw it in the trash.
Act Quickly
Saving furniture from water damage is not something that you want to take your time with and wait until you're free next weekend to do. You'll want to act quickly to prevent the damage from getting worse than it already is. The first thing you should do is get the furniture into a dry place and out of the wet part of your home. If the weather is nice, take the furniture outside. If not, bring it out to your garage where the furniture will be covered and get air circulation to help dry it out. Even if you do nothing else, this will be a lot better than leaving the item indoors.
Strip Down The Furniture
You'll likely need to strip down the furniture item that you want to save so that you have access to all its pieces. This includes removing upholstery and padding and replacing it with brand-new material. If you can save the base of the item and its wood construction, know that new upholstery and padding will be a fraction of the cost of getting brand-new furniture.
Restore The Wood
The wood materials will need to be treated properly in order to save it. The wood will need to be dried out completely, and then you can look for which pieces of wood have damage that would be visible on the item once it's covered with fabric again. These spots will need to be refinished with a new stain and sealer if the wood is discolored.
Bring In A Professional
It's important to realize that this is an area where your skills may be limited in terms of getting the job done correctly. Consider bringing in a professional that offers water damage restoration services to fix your furniture. They'll have access to special equipment that can get the job done more more efficiently, such as vacuums that are able to extract moisture from fabric surfaces. You definitely don't want to try and restore an item on your own only to have mold grow in places that you were unable to clean.