Could I spray-dye my cotton fabric furniture to refinish faded areas? Is it easily doable?
You can’t dye upholstered furniture, since the excess dye must be washed out thoroughly after you apply it. If you don’t thoroughly wash dyed furniture after dyeing, the color will rub off onto the clothing of anyone who sits in it, but you obviously cannot immerse upholstered furniture in water. You can use fabric paint instead of dye, though. See the instructions in the links below. Painting your furniture will not save you any money as compared to making your own slipcovers, because it takes a lot of fabric paint to cover a large piece of furniture. It also will not last as long, because, unlike dye, fabric paint sits only on the surface of the fiber, and so it will wear off with time. A more immediate problem with fabric paint on a napped fabric like velour is that it might cause the fibers in the nap to clump together, depending on how deep the plush is. Fabric paint always leaves a perceptible slight stiffness on the fabric, unlike true dye.
