Show me your sofas!

[GuinnessLover]

Or, maybe just describe them if you'd rather not? 😊 I have a 4yo and am moving into an unfurnished property. Living in a furnished place with suede style sofas has been quite stressful at times with a young child. They're messy, when they're painting they can run from one side of the house with paint on their hands to the other in 0.4 seconds straight and lo and behold, paint on the landlord's sofa. Can anyone advise on the best colour and material when you have young mess creating children? I'm thinking dark blue velvet or something similar but would love some input. Happy new year for when it comes!

Agree with pp. leather, or at least something with removable, washable covers.

Our leather M&S sofa lasted 17/18 years & was still going strong when we got rid of it. It was easy to wipe with DC.
Now DC are grown we splashed out and got a light coloured fabric sofa. Even with stain protection it had marks on it with in a couple of months! I will go back to leather next time.

We have a dark blue velvet sofa, which we had treated with stain resistant stuff. But there are no children in the house.

I love it, but it needs vacuuming daily. Dust settles on the top of the back cushions and the frame and every tiny crumb shows.

The most hardwearing sofas I’ve got are old Chesterfields. One’s 1920s and the other is mid-century (but after the traditional style). The leather is tough but comfy and they come up really well when cleaned (which isn’t often). They were slightly tatty ‘previously loved’ jobs which I’ve gradually tidied up over the years so not thousands to buy. (I think I paid £800 ish each for them, it’s been a while!) They’ll outlive me.

We have a black velvet one and our children don’t eat near it and it still needs hoovering and lint rolling daily. It shows up everything.

We have cream fabric ones in the snug which are 4 years old and still look like new.

If they’re going to be doing messy things near the sofa I would suggest leather would be your best bet. Probably a dark coloured one.

I like a sort of tweedy material with kids. Our old blue sofa was brilliant for hiding mess.

I've got three sofas, one grey fabric, one leather and the other navy velvet and the navy is hands down the best. I've kids and dogs and it's easy to clean, all the cushions unzip and go in the washing machine and it always looks lovely. The other two are fine but leather absorbs and it can stain.

I'd say go for something cheap that can be replaced in a few years. Either preloved leather, or something hard-wearing leather type or with replaceable covers. Ikea have a good choice. I had ikea sofas whilst the dc were young and they survived all sorts of abuse.

We have a teal velvet sofa in the kitchen (preloved on ebay), and in the living room a cream linen antique style plus a love seat (also ebay). The velvet one and the love seat have both stood up well to our muddy dogs but the cream sofa needs constantly protecting with throws.

Previously we had a contemporary leather chesterfield that didn't wear terribly well, the cushions constantly slid off and it felt cold in winter/stuck to us in summer.

I'd highly recommend buying good quality second hand - our love seat was just £70 and the velvet sofa £500 (retailed at 2k).

We have a blue velvet chesterfield that I initially banned ddog from and said not dc eating on it. Even dh was nervous to eat on it. Now it’s 3 years old and has a blanket in it as the dog tends to sleep on it. Ddog doesn’t massively moult but we vaccume weekly and it’s fine.