You would never go to the beach without u/v protection, would you? Everything in your home is exposed to low-levels of u/v light all the time and it can't regenerate the way your skin can. It doesn't have any way to protect itself. Most people never think about this and so the money they invested in making their home beautiful slowly goes to waste, pennies at a time as their carpets, leather sofas and wood floors fade, scuff and dry out.



Proper furniture care is difficult to define. Standard furniture polish you can find in the supermarket can make your coffee table shine like new and also offers some short-term protection against small scuffs and scratches, but don't address the long-term issues, of which u/v light is at the forefront. Even at the low-levels you'll find in an average living room, over time it is extremely damaging to everything it touches that is made of wood, leather or fiber.

Most people have either owned furniture long enough to see some of the effects, or grew up in a house where your parents had an old couch that you could just tell was old simply by looking at it. Worn-out u/v damaged furniture isn't the worst thing in the world, in fact some might say it makes a place look homey, or lived in. That's perfectly understandable for someone who already owns an old, faded sofa, but if you own furniture that is fairly new you know it looks great the way it looks now! In fact, that's why you bought it. You don't want to even imagine that brand new home theater seating looking cracked and faded. It's enough to make you wince.

Luckily some companies do offer the kind of u/v protection furniture needs. Most people have heard of Scotchgard, but many are not clear on exactly what it does, which is simply this: Provide long-term protection against the elements to anything it is sprayed on. It's often viewed as an industrial or automotive product, but it is much more than that.

While Scotchgard is arguably the best known consumer product available, MasterSeal by Guardian products is also an excellent product and has been embraced by some as the only protectant they trust using on their most delicate leathers.

Guardian also manufactures commercial-grade furniture protectants that are used by many furniture retailers offering extended warranties on their products. Often-times when you purchase an extended warranty on furniture you are not just making an agreement that the retailer will service your furniture for a longer period. Many dealers are actually treating your furniture with commercial protectants to make the materials last longer and keep their original look. That is why extended warranties on furniture are often a better value than warranties offered on other products, such as electronics.

If you didn't buy an extended warranty, don't feel like you've completely missed the boat. If you regularly clean and polish your furniture you are already doing something to slow down the aging process. The other half of the job is actually a lot easier because many of the long-term protectants have to be applied at most twice a year or in some cases, just once!

And if you want to get the good stuff, the commercial-grade protectants the retailers use, some of them are actually available to consumers as well. In fact, there are even companies that will come to your home and spray the protectant onto your furniture for you, and then give you a warranty afterwards no matter how long it's been since your original warranty expired.

Proper furniture care is an important thing to think about because it doesn't take a lot of time but it can save a lot of money in the long-run. Ten years from now instead of spending money to replace a faded TV room couch you could be sitting on your just-like-new decade-old sofa and watching your brand new big screen televion.

And that's a tip most people don't know. I hope you've found it helpful.