thinking of buying a sofa with non-removable covers - how effective is scotchguarding?

[geekgirl]

After looking at about 500 sofas yesterday (the poor children were utterly sick of them by the end of the day ), I've got a bit of a dilemma as the only one I really loved the look of does not have removable covers.
We've got a leather one at the moment and I don't take any care of it really, other than wiping it down once a week. Everybody's allowed to eat on it etc. Now, I do think that instilling a bit more discipline regarding furniture would be A Good Thing anyway, but would I regret this purchase bitterly?

We would pay to have it scotchguarded, which includes a 5 year guarantee against any kind of stain, which sounds pretty good to me. but how effective is scotchguarding really? Do liquids really not get absorbed at all?

We had a cream suite before we had children. Had it Scotchguarded and it resisted both red wine and chocolate. Had it re done a couple of times but the last time it didn't really work. Have now got a dark leather one and it's fab. Any reason you wouldn't go for another leather one?

We've got a scotchguarded one - the covers will come off but I don't think you're supposed to wash them (can't imagine getting them back on the cushions anyway!)

DD1 has peed on it a couple of times while she was asleep, the cushion didn't seem to be wet.

When she was sick on it I did scrub them clean, and that was succesful too (but propbably wasn't supposed too. Can't leave sick and just dab with a white cloth though, can you?)

It does have a small pencil mark on it. The children are banned from eating or drinking on it. It wasn't sooo expensive that I'd go nuts if it was accidentally damaged.

The scotchguarding is like a miracle for stains, you can literally just lift them off with a dry cloth, but our sofa does have a kind of grubbiness to it now, but then it is over 10 years old!

riven, baby vomit wipes off fine, no experience of beans, but jam and blackcurrant juice have cleaned off with no issues.

Geekgirl

No advice to offer, but also spent the weekend looking a MILLIONS of sofas.

Top choice was a sofaworkshop fixed covers (oatmeal). Will I live to regret it? Trying to look on google how effective scotchguard is....

We got a fabric sofa with the scotchguarding but didn't find it great tbh. Its 5 yr old and we are now getting leather.
it just looked grubby and once you know its had pee/vomit soaked into it you never feel quite as comfortable.
I prefer fabric sofas/chairs but will have to wait until kids grown up!

The scotchguard is just to stop it the stains from becoming irremovable - you should still get the sofa steam cleaned regularly - every 12-18mths I've been told - and at every steam clean they will need to reapply the scotchguard. I found all this out about 6weeks ago when I forked out $600 for 12 seats worth of steam cleaning.

It's amazing on ours.

We have a velvety-nap sofa that's been Scotchguarded. At a drunken party, a guest came up to me mortified because she'd spilled her red wine on the sofa. She'd dabbed at it with a napkin and then come to find me. By the time we returned to the sofa the stain was gone.