Go ahead, live on the edge. Put a red sofa in front of your sunniest window. Let the kids eat sloppy Joes on the couch.

A new generation of upholstery fabrics can take it.

Advances in the way fabrics are manufactured or treated have resulted in high-performance upholstery fabrics engineered to
stand up to whatever kids, dogs and uncoordinated adults can dish out. Some repel stains or shun germs; some resist fading or
refuse to wear out.

With these workhorse fabrics, "every room"s a living room," said Joe Ruggiero, a home-design authority and host of "The World
of Design and Homes Across America" series on HGTV. "Thank God we"re not putting plastic covers on our furniture anymore."

High-performance fabrics are aimed at consumers who crave convenience, but not at the price of appearance, said Sharon
Bosworth, vice president of upholstery design at Thomasville Furniture Industries.

"People want to live that extreme-edge lifestyle," she said, "but they don't want to take any risks."

For all their tough-as-nails qualities, these highly functional fabrics are approaching cottons, linens, damasks, silks and
other traditional upholstery fabrics in appearance and softness, and some are quite luxe.

Ruggiero said people who saw the gray pinstripe fabric he introduced as part of his collection of Sunbrella acrylic fabrics
couldn"t believe it wasn"t real flannel. "It"s really come a long way," he said.

A whole range of high-performance upholstery fabrics is making its way into the marketplace. At the Showtime fabric market
earlier this year in High Point, N.C., more manufacturers were showing fabrics with improved performance properties,
according to the trade publication Furniture/Today.

One category with which many consumers are familiar is microdeniers, fabrics made from ultrafine, chemically derived fibers.
they're sometimes generically called "microfibers," although Microfiber is a brand name, said Suzie Roberts, sales manager
for residential fabrics at textile maker Glen Raven Inc.

Suede-look fabrics such as Ultrasuede are among the best-known examples of microdeniers. But at the Showtime market,
manufacturers were touting such fashionable looks as a reversible suede-and-shearling imitation, a velvety snakeskin-pattern
fabric made of nylon and a polyester fabric that feels like washed, sueded silk, Furniture/Today said.

Microdeniers are woven so tightly that spills and dirt have difficulty penetrating. In some fabrics, the threads, or "yarns,"
 are made of fibers that have been entangled rather than spun in the traditional way, giving the yarns a fluffier texture,
Roberts explained.

The fabrics are also durable and washable, and many pet owners like the faux suedes because they don't show scratches such as
 claw marks.

Two microdeniers, Ultrasuede and Sensuede, are among the choices Thomasville is offering in its new "Extreme Fabrics" program
 of high-performance upholstery fabrics, which the company unveiled in October and is starting to promote to consumers this
month. Other choices are Crypton, a brand of fabrics that repels stains and moisture; fabrics treated with Microban, which
resists the growth of microbes including bacteria, mold and mildew; and Sunbrella acrylic fabrics, which are mildew-
resistant, easy to clean and extremely resistant to fading.

Crypton fabrics are fairly new to the residential market, although they"ve been used for upholstery in commercial settings
such as restaurants, hotels and cruise ships -- places that are subject to even more spills and wear than the typical family
room. The fabrics are tightly woven and treated so stains won"t penetrate, and a moisture barrier keeps spills from getting
past the fabric and into the cushion, said Randy Rubin, who with her husband, Craig, owns Hi-Tex Inc., the company that makes
 Crypton. The fabrics also hold up well against tears and wear through abrasion and are treated to resist bacteria growth,
she said.

The treatment process involves immersing the fabric in a chemical bath and then heating it in an oven so the chemical
encapsulates each thread, Rubin said. She said stains such as wine, food and crayon marks come right off, and even bleach
won"t harm it.

Crypton fabrics are made of a variety of fibers, including natural fibers such as cotton, and take a range of forms such as
faux suedes, chenilles and velvets. Some of the fabrics feel stiff initially, but Rubin said they soften with use. "You will
not feel an industrial kind of fabric," she said.

Sunbrella is another high-performance fabric that"s making inroads in residential upholstery. The fabric initially was used
for awnings and boat covers.

Sunbrella is 100 percent solution-dyed acrylic. That means the acrylic fibers are colored throughout before they're spun into
 the yarns that later are woven into fabric, said Hank Truslow Jr., president of Sunbury Textile Mills. Sunbury is one of the
 mills that is licensed to manufacture and sell Sunbrella, a brand owned by Glen Raven.

The process gives the fabric an uncommon ability to resist fading from sunlight or even chlorine bleach. That makes Sunbrella
 well-suited as an upholstery or drapery fabric in rooms with lots of windows, said Ruggiero. The fabric is also easy to
clean, he said, and comes out of the washing machine looking new.

Sunbrella does have some limitations, he conceded. It doesn"t take printed designs well, so you won"t find an intricate
chintz in the fabric. It"s also a little more expensive than cotton or linen, but the trade-off is in the performance,
Ruggiero said.

High-performance fabrics in general tend to cost more than their traditional counterparts. For example, Thomasville"s high-
performance fabrics might cost $30 to $36 a yard, Bosworth said, while its lowest-end fabrics start around $15 a yard.

Nevertheless, stain-repellent fabrics eliminate the need to have upholstered furniture treated to resist soiling, Crypton's
Rubin noted. Crypton's process adds about $4 a yard to the cost of fabric, she said, but that additional cost is offset by
the saving on treatments.

Rubin believes consumers will snap up high-performance fabrics once they learn their benefits. Not everyone is so sure,
however.

Bosworth said the reaction she"s seen to high-performance fabrics largely has split along gender lines. Women tend to embrace
 the idea, she said, while men are largely skeptical.

"I don't think these guys get it, because they don't clean house. ... Yet they're making all the (business) buying
decisions," she said.

Whether high-performance fabrics perform as well in the marketplace as they do on a seat cushion remains to be seen.

But they sure beat plastic slipcovers.