I’m going to shame myself in this post, and hope you all learn from my mistakes! About 8 years ago I bought a sofa set on Craigslist that had seen better days but wasn’t beyond help. I had my team restore it as a training exercise and it took us FOREVER, but it turned out absolutely gorgeous. It was vibrant and soft and supple. Scroll to the bottom for a gallery of the restoration process. My team and I have done leather care and restoration now for about 10 years, but as a lot of professionals do, I tend to take care of my own stuff last… or not at all in this case. My home environment is ver ..read more

This week Gustavo was assisting our client Sarah for her move out cleaning. She had some deep depressions in her carpeting from a table that had been sitting in the same place for a number of years. She removed that piece of furniture and it left some pretty significant indents in the carpeting, so she asked Gustavo how she could remove those indentations. She told him that she had tried everything she could think of to remove them. There are a few different industry terms we use to describe these: pile distortion, pile damage, texture distortion, furniture marks, furniture indentations. As w ..read more

Last week, Javier was in the home of one of our clients. It’s a beautiful contemporary farmhouse and he was there to clean the carpeting upstairs. When he walked in the front door, he noticed a beautiful cowhide rug sitting in the entrance. It looked to be in great shape, but the edges were starting to curl as you can see from our pictures. It also didn’t seem to have a firm position on the ground, as there was no pad under it. Dutifully, Javier suggested to the customer that we treat their curled edges with a little bit of moisturizing gel and recommended a custom cut pad for underneath. Cowh ..read more

WIth warm weather comes all of the creepy crawlies. As you prepare for summer and begin spring cleaning, remember to check your closets, rugs and wool upholstery for signs of moths. There are all sorts of moths that enjoy the warm, damp climate of late spring and early summer. Pantry moths are the first that come to mind, but it is hard to miss a swarm of those – they don’t hide. Moths that are a little more elusive are clothes moths. Where to look: Moths like dark, quiet areas – under furniture, under rugs, inside closets… It is not uncommon for our clients to discover moth damage when it is ..read more

I recently read a number of articles explaining to consumers that knowing cleaning codes can help them to clean most upholstery spills and stains themselves. Having a couple of decades of experience under my belt, I would have to disagree with that claim. However, having a professional clean your upholstery every time you have a spill can get expensive. As an experienced professional, and having owned such a company for the last 10 years, I would give some differing advice, so bear with me a little longer. Below are the cleaning codes that are often placed on upholstered furniture that are ext ..read more

This week in carpet cleaning chronicles, I want to highlight a conversation my technician had with his client, and is a conversation we repeat at least three times a week. Client: “I have this stain from [insert any substance here] and I tried to get rid of it myself using [insert any OTC cleaning product here] and now it looks worse. Can you remove it?” Technician: “I am so sorry to hear that happened with your stain. Unfortunately, when you treat a stain with a store-bought product, you often create a permanent result. Furthermore, when you do not rinse the product out of the fabric it can c ..read more

Last week we returned a set of sofa cushions to a customer very clean and smelling fresh. She had called us because her cat had peed pretty extensively on the cushions on her living room couch. Selfishly, we really love pets and their accidents because it usually means a return customer and a regular customer to boot!! so naturally, we were thrilled and invited her to bring them right in. in this particular case, this customer was using us for the first time and a few days after she got her cushions back her pet revisited them again.  She called us back pretty upset, quoting our guarantee ..read more

It’s been a few decades since we have seen velvet in abundance, but it is making a comeback. This trending material is becoming a centerpiece of today’s living rooms and we couldn’t be more excited. Velvet is a huge challenge, and at Mother Nature’s Cleaning – difficult things are our specialty. In fact, our newest technician is fast becoming a velvet expert – he has already successfully assisted in cleaning six velvet sofas  and has only been with us a few short months. The term velvet does not indicate a specific fiber type, but rather a type of construction or weave of fabric. Velvet i ..read more

Have you ever wondered how we clean a sheepskin rug or other animal hide product? This is not entry level carpet cleaning stuff – Mother Nature’s Cleaning has been cleaning sheepskin rugs, cowhide rugs, leather rugs, flokati rugs and all sorts of animal products in Marin County since 2009. We have even cleaned a horsehair mattress. There isn’t a one stop solution for every animal hair nor hide, but they all need to be treated carefully with low moisture and special handling. All of the rugs I mentioned before can be constructed a little bit differently, so it’s important to identify what you a ..read more

We see mold on outdoor cushions, Persian rugs, commodity tufted area rugs, on indoor furniture that has been in storage, as well as on carpeting that has been over-wet during a cleaning or flooded. We see our fair share of it so it only makes sense that we are always up to speed on our mold knowledge and education. Molds are very common in both residential and commercial spaces. Mold thrives in places with a lot of moisture – leaky roofs, windows and pipes and residue from flooding are all places where it will start. It grows the best on wood products (paper, cardboard, ceiling tiles, wallpap ..read more