Not sure how to choose the right type of upholstery fabric for your caravan? There are a few important factors to consider, to ensure all your hard work doesn’t go to waste.
1. How often you use your caravan seats.
Heavy use requires a more durable and heavy grade upholstery fabric.
2. The age of your kids.
If you have toddlers in the caravan, you may wish to consider fabric that it easy to wipe down. A good example is leather or PLU.
3. Where you like to go caravanning.
Love being by the ocean and you bring a lot of sand onto the caravan seats? You’ll need to easily brush or vacuum the seats without doing too much damage. From my experience leather is not a great choice when in contact with sand as it is too abrasive.
4. Climate of when you usually travel.
For example, the tropics. You probably don’t want to be sitting on PLU in the tropics. A good quality cotton/ canvas/ linen fabric is a better choice.
5. How to clean the upholstery fabric.
Do you need to be able to wipe off spills or will a good vacuum be enough?
6. Colour.
Light or dark, Bright or Neutral, consider the theme you’ve chosen.
7.Cost of fabric.
This all comes down to which fabric you decide to go with and how many linear metres you’ll need.
Choosing upholstery fabric can be daunting but once you have considered all 7 factors, you can begin shopping!
I am a huge fan of the IKEA range of fabrics. They are not upholstery grade. However, my caravan seat cushions look amazing and are holding up really well. The majority of IKEA fabrics are 150cm wide, which is perfect for recovering caravan seat cushions.
For my backrest, I chose a floral print with dark blues and greens with a little white space. The print fabric is 100% cotton. For the seat cushion, I used a very dark blue 100% linen fabric.
I took into consideration all of the 7 factors AND also took into consideration that I love changing the look of my caravan interior. I figured if the fabric became too soiled or damaged for whatever reason, it would be a fabulous excuse to recover again. You may think its tragic, but I really do love recovering my own caravan seat cushions. Especially when there is ZERO sewing involved!
Looking for ideas on how to design and decorate your caravan? I’ve put together 9 caravan interior design styles to inspire you.
