Forgot how much I love upholstery cleaning

I was stopped in traffic today by a guy in nice new Mercedes who read my van and wanted to know if I had time to clean some furniture that he had in storage. I asked what kind of fabric, he told me "The normal fabric" what-ever that meant to him.

I followed him to his house out in the hills along a secluded gravel road. Inside his garage was a love seat and 2 sitting room chairs. They got wet in storage and had some mildew damage. They were a very nice creme set made out of cotton / nylon with some silk in the piping.

The guy tells me that the tag said "dry cleaning only" which always makes me laugh. I didn't make any promises on the ink stains nor the mildew damage, but assured him that they would clean up just fine with wet cleaning.

I finished them by hand in 39 minutes. The ink tried to wick back up a little, but you had to know where to look to find it. The mildew left a bad ring on one cushion that could not be corrected, but the other side was brilliant. All-in-all, customer was happy and wife pleased.

End result for 39 minutes......$250. Dude paid in cash and took a business card.

I love furniture

I love it too....back when I started doing this a 100 years ago we used to pic furniture up and bring it back to the plant....We had dry cleaning solvents and an air compressor for blowing out spots and special areas of problems....I love to do it now because we dont have to load and unload anymore...so its much easier. We really had a large following when we did it that way...we also brought oriental rugs back and cleaned them in the giant wringer and they were hung in a drying room.....I did binding and surging along with fringe repair. I have a lot of knowledge in doing this but dont bring it up. I was really good in repairs too.....did some dyes and color fixes here and there too. this was long ago.

You are one skilled dude Devon.

I used to do high end furniture, but rarely see anything other the microfiber stuff these days. No challenge and no money in most of them.

We did high end stuff too...we were known for it in Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Hollywood areas all the way back to Covina where our shop/plant was.....I went into homes of many famous people and could care less who they were, like I said before I dont get star struck and I look for the real people in life.....they are likely to be found in forums and on the streets usually working hard....a lot of the time homeless.....Im serious too.



I remember knocking at a door one time at a very exclusive home in Beverly Hills and when they opened the door they about had a heart attack that I was "help" and motioned in a serious panic for me to go to the service entry. Guess workers cant come through the front door....whats funny is thats where I cleaned and in spite opened it and left it open!



Rich people rarely tip...its the working class that tips! heck the rich wouldnt even offer water.lol My favorite one was a bigtime attorney for Disneyland....he had 11 kids and a nanny and a wife and me....lol he paid well because I made the wife happy (no comments) and with a happy wife with 11 kids was rare I suspect. He would tell me twice a year if it was cleanable clean it. I was thinking with 11 dirty kids I could bank.



They had several very old Grecian flokati rugs and silk rugs all over this place....I think the house was well over 10k sf. Ive been invited to some really amazing parties back then...I learned I dont party with the rich

35 minutes   That probably would have takes me about an hour.

So you sprayed it down, hand agitated and then hand dried and groomed?

Mo wrote:35 minutes   That probably would have takes me about an hour.

So you sprayed it down, hand agitated and then hand dried and groomed?

Are you kidding me Mo ??? He's not going to have time to do all of those in 35 minutes, he sprays them heavy and extract, that's all you need to do if you want to make $ 400 / hour, why make it complicated ? Lol.
On a serious note, that is an amazing completion time, unless if the sofa and chairs are all squared, I wouldn't have been able to clean them in 35 minutes. My target is $ 200 / hour, so as long as I can finish them in an hour and 15 minutes, I'm happy. Great job Rob.

I'm not sure I can say "I love furn cleaning", but I don't hate doing it anymore, like I did before the constant flow sheering type tools came to be. Cleaning with those SS trigger type uphol tool made me really dislike furn cleaning.

It's so much easier and faster now, being able to one pass clean and extract with the new generation sheering tools.

Mo wrote:35 minutes   That probably would have takes me about an hour.

So you sprayed it down, hand agitated and then hand dried and groomed?

Bucket solution...applied foam with soft brush....treated spots....saphire tool....groomed and stacked by airpath fan.

I was motivated and moving fast. For me the key is to have a folding table so that you can clean the cushions without bending over. That saves a ton of time.

Good idea on the Table Rob....



I use two buckets...I sit on one and can easily get up or drop down to knees if needed....the other holds the cushion as a make shift table and is easy to spin, flip, twist whatever. I currently use two Home Depot buckets but had a nice set up in the past with fishing buckets type of a thing that had cushions....I had two and they twist like a lazy Suzan .....My knees are bad and your table sounds good....I may try it and see if its any better. Either way it beats doing it any other way.



Now...where is my wifes table?

I like that fishing bucket idea...will have to try that.

I wish I had the room to carry a table. The last time I used a bucket to work on the car it broke and I fell on my arse

I may be be able to fit one of these in the van and put the cushions on the bucket


Pretty soon I'll have to put one of these in the van

Mo wrote:I wish I had the room to carry a table. The last time I used a bucket to work on the car it broke and I fell on my arse

I may be be able to fit one of these in the van and put the cushions on the bucket


Pretty soon I'll have to put one of these in the van

Mo wrote:I wish I had the room to carry a table. The last time I used a bucket to work on the car it broke and I fell on my arse

I may be be able to fit one of these in the van and put the cushions on the bucket


Pretty soon I'll have to put one of these in the van

You need a 3/4 ton van AND a chair......perfect solution.

With all that I can stay in until im 85. The fishing buckets do really good and stack. I just did a sectional and used my buckets today....works out perfect because the bucket you sit on keeps you off the ground and the other bucket lets you have two hands to do whatever until you need to grab the cushion....and not bend over for it. I got a tip too today....I used my phone credit card deal and when it asked if they wanted to leave a tim she just did it.....I did mention I was new with the reader and said she can just ignore the tip option....she said why?...and tipped. I actually forgot to take it off.

So, you did go with the tip option....will be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few months.

I once had a bucket from Nantucket, but it might have been a different style.

That's perfect Rob. Who said you can't clean into your 80s, probably get a lot of tips too

Im going to start working on an invention that incorporates a walker and a zipper. Heck with that! Im putting a wand on a Segway! w/ glides.

I got dibs on AARP Carpet Cleaning!

Devon07 wrote:I got dibs on AARP Carpet Cleaning!

"AARPCC"

Too many letters, maybe "Shades of Grey Cleaners"

lol

milspec6 wrote:

Mo wrote:35 minutes   That probably would have takes me about an hour.

So you sprayed it down, hand agitated and then hand dried and groomed?

Bucket solution...applied foam with soft brush....treated spots....saphire tool....groomed and stacked by airpath fan.

I was motivated and moving fast.  For me the key is to have a folding table so that you can clean the cushions without bending over.  That saves a ton of time.

I think Im going to start applying the cleaning solution by hand to. You applying and agitating at the same time and less over spray too.

ya I think I will go back to doing it that way too,     the multi sprayer is good for pre spraying uph but still tough to get good coverage and not over spray.  

also use the fold out table and that really takes the hard work out of it

cleaning in only one direction with the
"loose" cushions is also a good and faster way to go

have you guys tried the upholstery brush from american chems?      omg that thing is money just got 2 last week.       pet hair doesnt stand a chance...   works 100x better than vacuuming or horse hair brush,  or even using a tape roller

got one for each van,      actually it works so good I think I might start selling them to customers with hairy pets

Nice! They call it the Grim Reaper 10 bucks at Steambrite

YEp, I posted about the reapers about a month ago, they're great.....small and big one.

I seen something like that at WalMart believe it or not.....I didnt buy it for the same reason I dont like to buy from Home Depot. I will get this! love the idea.