To buy new armchairs, or not.....?

[BluebellTheDonkey]

This is what my little furballs of loveliness have done to my armchairs. I haven't actually done anything to try and stop them, the chairs are old and only cheap DFS, so I guess it is my fault for allowing them to form the habit (bad cat slave)
Is it even worth me trying again with new chairs? They're just going to ruin them aren't they? Any advice oh wise litter tray posters?

Do they have scratching posts that are well secured?

Yes, they have two and use them lots. They just like the chairs as well

This is one - they've done a good job!
And the other, new at Christmas, big boy cat seems to like the size.

If you buy new they'll just trash them again, so you need to break the habit first. I believe that putting tape on the big where they are scratching is a turn off for them so maybe try that?

I wondered about the tape WitchDancer I wonder if it works? Maybe I should get some and stick it over the current ones and see if it stops them.

I would love some tips on stopping this. I read that spraying with body spray works but haven't got round to trying it.

I trained mine by spraying her with a plant mister. I only have to pick it up now and she runs away. We also bought extra scratching posts and put them in areas she tends to claw. She gets lots of praise when she uses them but she does appear to be part cat and part dog

Ooh they're little buggers at times, aren't they (autocorrect was trying to put huggers )

Good advice here.

Mine likes prancing around my mattress and having a little claw, I've given up and leave her to it

sillyswimmer I was thinking of that, but am out at work 8am - 4pm in the week so can't be there to consistently spray!! Have ordered some wide double sided tape and will try it over the areas they've destroyed before we invest in new chairs.

My cats ruined my fabric sofas, but I replaced it with a leather one, and they've never touched it!

You can get scratching boards that fix over the edges of chairs I think.

Ours absolutely love cardboard horizontal scratching boards and have stopped scratching anything else now they have those.

I find mine don’t touch Velvet but scratch anything else.

Interesting! I assume mine are vertical scratchers given ehat damage they've done but could try a horizontal one to see if they like it. Velvet or leather options sound interesting too! Maybe I should get some fabric samples and see what happens, I feel some experiments coming on....

Mine only scratched vertically until we got horizontal ones.

My entire house looks like that, I'm past caring, at this point I need my cats more than a pristine house.

WunWun I have ordered one! Will see what happens. Thank you.

Update if anyone is interested! A trip to IKEA means we now have two Poang chairs, hopefully non scratchable. They weren't hugely expensive but fingers crossed they don't find a way to trash them! Here is girl cat looking somewhat unimpressed, but sitting on it anyway.....