The importance of selecting commercial fabrics for your hotel, motel, or caravan park.
Fabrics are one of the most noticeable components on a sofa or upholstered item. The fabric color and texture can dramatically change the mood and feel of your room or space. With such a huge range of options it can sometimes be a little daunting when it comes to selecting fabrics for your commercial space. We suggest the best way to start is to consider how the sofas will be used and what performance and characteristics you would like from the fabrics, Vinyls or synthetic leathers. let’s look at an example.
Lets say we are looking for a sofa for a Park cabin in Warm dry climate with pet friendly location with high occupancy rates. In this scenario we would suggest using a 100% polyester heavy commercial rated fabric. Polyester fabrics are very hard wearing with inherent easy clean properties. A good example is to think of the fabric fibers as either Carrots or Radishes. Carrots represents natural fibers like Cotton, Flax/Linnen, Hemp and Viscose Rayon, these fibers are highly absorbent and when colored take the color to the core of the fiber. Unfortunately this is also the case when stained. Spills or stains will also be absorbed to the core of the fabric fibers making them difficult to remove. Polyester and man made fibers are more like Radishes in construction. the fibers are coated with color which remains on the outside of the fibers and does not get drawn into the core of the fibers. This allows for easier cleaning and better resistance to staining.
Next we would recommend considering the amount of use the fabric will be exposed to. In this case a high occupancy rate and possibly used by pets means we will be looking for hard wearing and a tight weave that will resist pull and snags. Coco fabric for example has a Heavy commercial rating and a tight weave. Commercial ratings are based on either a Martindale or Wyzenbeek abrasion test which shows how much wear and tear a fabric will take before there is a noticeable change in appearance. The higher the score, the more durable the fabric is. The benchmark for heavy commercial on a Martindale test is 40,000 cycles while the Wyzenbeek method is classed as Heavy commercial above 30,000 cycles. this is because the methods used for each test differ slightly but both methods are recognized industry wide and used globally.
Now that we have selected a suitable fabric, we can start to look at colors and accessories. Natural tones can create a calm and inviting space while still being easy to clean and maintain. The below Carlton sofa bed is upholstered in Coco Ash Brown with scatter cushions in Carlisia Mink fabric. Coco fabric has 13 color options and with a slight fleck to the weave it matches well with floor covering and curtains
We added two 45×45 scatters in Carlisia Mink fabric to above sofa. The multi tone scatters again will co-ordinate well with several shades of brown and grey with a fresh pop of white to lift and freshen the look. Carlisia has 7 colors options all with multiple shades of color along with grey and a fresh white contrast. they can match well with greys, browns, blues and reds.
The above is just an example of one scenario, there are thousands of options and combinations. We have Fabrics for outdoor use, Fabrics that can be bleach cleaned and even options that have been tested to resist damage from pool chlorine. If you have any questions please reach out to us, we would be happy to talk about your specific requirements and run through some options.
