Paugus Bay condo living is hard on a sofa. Wet swimsuits, sunscreen, the dog off the boat, four months of weekend guests. We clean sectionals, chairs, and boat cushions in Laconia without soaking them, and without the water rings a rental machine leaves behind.
Head up Route 3 toward the Weirs and you pass South Down Shores and Long Bay, which together are close to five hundred homes and nineteen little condo villages on about a mile of Paugus Bay shoreline. Started in 1981 on what used to be South Down Farm. It’s a big part of our upholstery work in Laconia, and it’s a particular kind of work. A lot of those units are weekend places. Owners drive up Friday night, the sectional gets sat on wet, the dog naps on it, sunscreen goes everywhere, and by Labor Day the arms are a shade darker than the back cushions.
Then there’s the boat club. Forty slips, forty moorings, a couple hundred boats in dry storage. Every one of those has cushions that spend the summer soaking up lake water and sun and the winter in a shrink-wrapped hull growing something. We do those too — bring them up to the unit or we’ll do them on the deck — and it’s the same care as a sofa. Test the fabric, clean it warm, don’t drown it.
Older Laconia furniture is a different problem. In the pre-war houses in Lakeport and around downtown you get the good wingback chair that’s been in the family since the mill days, and the upholstery on those is often natural fiber or an old blend. That’s a low-moisture job. We’re not putting a wet wand on your grandmother’s chair.
Condo owners who close up in October: clean the upholstery on the way out, not in May. Body oil and sunscreen left in a fabric for six months in a shut-up unit sets into a yellow line you can’t get out. Cleaned and dried in the fall, it comes back fine.
First thing we do is read the tag and test a hidden spot. Most condo sectionals are synthetic and can take warm extraction — a pre-spray on the arms and seat cushions where the oil is, gentle agitation, then a controlled rinse that lifts the soil out without pushing water into the foam. Foam that gets soaked takes days to dry and smells like the lake while it does. We don’t let that happen.
Natural fibers and anything old get the low-moisture method. Less water, more dwell time, more patience. Dries in a couple of hours and there’s no risk of shrinking a cotton skirt or bleeding a dye. Boat cushions get cleaned the same way a sofa does, then stood on edge in the sun to finish. We’ll quote the whole set together — sectional, two chairs, the ottoman, the cushions off the boat — so you’re looking at one number, not six.
A standard sofa runs $90–$150; loveseats and chairs come in under that, and a full condo sectional or a living-room set plus boat cushions gets one combined quote. Fabric protector’s an option if you want the next spilled drink to bead up instead of soak in.
Yes, and it’s the usual way we do it at South Down and Long Bay. Bring them up from the slip or dry storage and we’ll do them with the sofa. Same fabric test, same warm extraction, then they stand on edge in the sun to finish drying.
Usually. That smell is body oil, dander, and lake water that got into the cushion fabric and dried there. Extraction takes it out. If it’s gotten into the foam because the cushions were sat on soaking wet all summer, it can take an extra pass, and we’ll say so up front.
Not if we do our job. Old and natural-fiber upholstery gets a low-moisture clean with less water and more dwell time, after a colorfast test on a hidden spot. If the fabric fails the test we’ll tell you rather than gamble with a piece that’s been in the family since the mill days.
Synthetic sectionals cleaned with warm extraction are usable in about four to eight hours. Low-moisture pieces are faster, a couple of hours. Leave the slider open at the condo and it’ll be dry before dinner.
We do. It’s cheaper for you if we’re already at the condo village that day, so if you know a neighbor who’s been meaning to call, tell them. But one wingback in Lakeport is a real job to us and we’ll come for it.
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