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Home Furnishing Fabrics

Find the best home textile and furnishing fabrics for your decorating business

By Lauren Haslett
Professional decorators and interior designers have a vast array of resources at their fingertips thanks to the Internet, and knowing how to use these resources to locate the most durable and most beautiful home fabrics for your customers is essential. Whether your company's focus tends toward more upscale upholstery fabrics and design or more basic home furnishing textile and decorative services, there are producers and suppliers online who can deliver exactly what you need.

As you investigate your many options:

1. Start by giving traditional home furnishing fabrics wholesalers a try. While they may not offer the most unusual or unique designer upholstery fabrics, they will provide a huge and varied selection all in one place. As an added bonus they will usually offer far better prices than the designer houses as well.

2. When you've covered the basics, consider offering at least a small selection of upscale upholstery fabrics (if that's not exactly your focus) or a larger array (if that's your main market segment).

3. If you don't already, consider providing decorating services or other related products alongside home furnishing fabrics.

 

Finding traditional house fabric wholesalers online is a great way to start your search

Large wholesalers and distributors can offer you a bigger array of home furnishings textile choices than many of the smaller specialty suppliers, and usually at better prices, too.
Try: Barrow Industries has been servicing professionals in the house fabrics and decorating industries for three generations and is a great reliable resource. Joanne/J.F. Fabrics is another wholesaler and distributor of decorator fabrics.

Look to upscale producers of home fabrics to increase your business's offerings

Large wholesalers and suppliers can be great places to get what you need for your business at low prices, but sometimes there's no replacement for designer upholstery fabrics. When your clients demand the absolute best, go to these manufacturers for products you can't find anywhere else.
Try: Take a look at the websites of top design firms in the industry, such as Designtex, which offers not just furnishing fabrics but also every imaginable type of designer decorating material. Climatex, another design firm, prides itself on offering the finest in environmentally sound house textiles. Coral of Chicago is a firm specializing in more commercial applications.

Offer additional decorating accessories or custom fabric products for the home to gain business

Custom products or other decorating materials that you can offer alongside the expected upholstery and drapery fabrics are a great way to bring in extra revenue for your business.
Try: D-Raj International allows you to purchase custom drapery tassels, tiebacks and other accessories along with your drapery fabric order online, and Weavetec, Inc. offers its clients home textiles made from custom-dyed yarns.

 

  • If possible, consider giving your clients more personalized service and attention by allowing them to browse all the most current offerings in decorative furnishing fabric from your suppliers themselves and procuring their choices for them, or even by supplying custom fabric products for the home.

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