Which is the best sofa covering for cats?

[ADHDQueen]

We have previously had leather, but our cat has scratched the sofas to bits within 3 years so am concerned about getting it again. Also worry that fabric sofas will get dirty, covered in cat hair & possibly even get smelly. What covering is best suited to scratchy cats?

I think covering your cat in a nice William Morris print would look nice.

Following because my fabric sofas are shredded to bits. I was hoping leather might be a better option…

A friend who lectures at a University (not on textiles) researched extensively and discovered that velvet upholstery was the answer.

They bought a velvet sofa and indeed the cat is not interested in scratching it.

Hmmm… mine’s velour and looks worse than his scratching post

I can confirm ours ignore the velvet. Veeeery occasionally one will have a go, but they can't get a grip so give up.

I think microsuede/microfibre is also similar.

We've got a 9 year old plain fabric sofa and chairs set (fairly cheap DFS one), made of quite a thick fabric. Cat has scratched it a bit but it doesn't show overly where he has. Every time he scratches it, me move his scratching post in front of the bit he scratched.

As for covers getting dirty/hairy/smelly, we take the covers off and put them in the washing machine every couple of months. Seems to work.

We have velvet and not a scratch in sight. Our previous leather furniture ended up looking like something from a werewolf film.

We've got an ex-display armchair that has a very basic thick cotton fabric covering and the cat doesn't ever attempt to scratch that. Unfortunately, it's now broken and needs replacing. He's destroyed all other furniture that has a more open weave.

Thank you. Its velvet we're looking at so will continue to do more research!

Of our sofas the velvet one is the one the cat is totally uninterested in for scratching. We have a wool herringbone sofa that he's also not bothered about (except for sleeping on). On the other hand, the corner sofa in the kitchen, which is a cotton / linen mix, has lots of little pulls where the bugger's claws have been in, despite being a very tight fabric. Won't be going for one of those again.

Definitely velvet! We were advised to get velvet by the salesperson, specifically for this reason, and were really worried that we'd just agreed to ruin a sofa but it's been brilliant. Unlike both of our old leather and fabric sofas, our cat can't actually get his claws into the velvet, they aren't able to get a grip on it so he's totally disinterested. His hair is very easily brushed off because it doesn't stick within the fabric either, it sort of sits on top and can be brushed away.

We've had velvet for about 8 months, and our very active, sharp clawed cats haven't damaged it at all. Ours is Clever Velvet from sofa.com, and I love it.

Velvet all day. They don’t touch it.

We had a velour seating unit and the cats shredded it. Velvet is very similar so I'm a little sceptical at the claims that cats will leave it alone.

The replacement settees after the velour ones were a smooth thick and slightly shiny cotton finish and the cats left them alone.

They don't like velour.

I don't think they like the slippy feel of it. My mother chose a sofa in the 1980's and despite up to 10 cats over 40 years, the sofa remains unscratched.

We had a cotton sofa twice that was shredded. Then a leather one, also shredded. The last year we chose a velour sofa, not a scratch. Not even a stretch. I'm please and equally puzzled I didn't opt for this earlier.

I meant velvet not velour.