View all news stories

Should a leather sofa and children share the same room?

Leather sofas look inviting and stylish. Children, generally, don’t. The question is: can they co-exist? With the right choice of furniture, it is more than possible to seat the family in comfort, without having to worry too much about the impact children may have.

Parents of young children need to take extra care when choosing a sofa but, if they have set their hearts on leather, then a few guidelines will help them make the right choice.
The positive aspect to buying a leather sofa that will be used by children is that it will be built to last, unlike many fabric sofas. Good quality leather improves with age, both in colour and feel, and is remarkably resistant.

The first, and probably most important, consideration will be colour, simply because children find it hard to sit still, even when drawing, painting and writing, so the sofa will inevitably collect stains and marks. It may be a good idea to steer clear of white and other very pale colours. Most of the leather used in furniture these days has been finished to a standard that will shrug off everyday stains with just a quick
wipe over, and there are products available from upholstery suppliers that can be applied to leather to protect it from most offending liquids, even ink.

The best advice is to pre-empt the risk, and choose non colour-fast writing materials; it is possible to buy pens, paint, and even felt-tip pens, that wash off most surfaces. Failing this, using a proprietary cleaner for leather upholstery should enable such marks to be eradicated. If this does not work, there are companies that specialise in cleaning leather.

It’s not just stains that furniture is susceptible to, though. Children find it irresistible to jump onto a sofa, instead of just sitting on it in the normal way. Such treatment may result in scuffs, rips or tears, but here, again, there are excellent companies that will carry out repairs that are almost invisible to the naked eye.

As children grow and become more aware of their surroundings, they will learn to treat the family’s leather sofa with the respect it deserves, so it is only in the early years that parents will have to keep an eye on them.

A leather sofa will probably cost more to buy and maintain than its fabric equivalent but, with the right care, and using the correct treatments, it will last a lifetime, and the adults who were scribbling and bouncing on it as children, may well gladly inherit it.