Yup, we have the perfect storm for a total trashy looking living room sofa (and armchair to boot). We have a white sofa, white armchair and two young boys. To our boys, the sofa is a trampoline, eating tray and all-around place for smearing dirt after a rigorous afternoon digging a hole in the backyard.
The end result, if we didn’t play our cards right, is a disastrous-looking sofa. But we’re not amateurs. We enjoy our white sofa cake and eat it too.
The fact is our white furniture looks awesome and we keep it that way despite two young boys with free reign in the living room. The trick is covering it with throws. I know that to many it sound ludicrous to buy a white sofa only to cover it up, but read on because it’s not as bad as you think.
In fact, covering up your sofa until “the guests” arrive has its benefits. We get to eat our white sofa cake when company arrives. We peel off the throws and pillows to reveal a shimmering white beautiful sofa gleaming in our light-filled living room.
The bright white contrasts with the deep red wood floor like a Rembrandt painting on a white gallery wall. It’s a sight to behold. We love it.
We do not regret opting for white furniture.
Related: Best Sofa Brands | Types of Sofas | White Modern Formal Living Room Ideas
Just how popular are white sofas? Here’s our nifty sofa color chart
While not the most popular if you gauge by availability, there still are a lot to choose from. I did a little digging on Wayfair and crunched sofa numbers by color. Here’s the breakdown of sofa popularity color.
Out of a total of 16,769 sofas available, 1,779 came in white. Here’s the total breakdown chart.
I must say I’m surprised at how popular gray is for a sofa color. I like gray furniture, but it clobbers the “competition”. Now that I’ve kinda validated buying a white sofa using some statistics, let’s explore the reasons we bought white furniture and don’t regret it.
The “not regretting it” is the key.
Looks like a million bucks
I’ve already heralded how fabulous white furniture looks in a living room. Actually, it’s stunning in any room. We just don’t see it all the time because it’s covered, but for those times where we reveal it all in its bright white glory, the room is spectacular.
For these moments alone, a white sofa purchase is worth every penny and worry. Yes, there is worry involved. Will one of the boys manage to smear ketchup under the throw?
It could happen. In fact, we gambled and lost when we threw a monster house party where someone (who never stepped forward) dumped a good portion of a tumbler of red wine all over our white armchair. Murphy’s law dictates that only red wine gets spilled, never white, right?
It’s true. When was the last time you had to clean up white wine? While our white furniture shimmered for the party, it did not come out unscathed but that’s okay because the covers come off and are machine-wash friendly. Running the covers through the wash after our bash was not our first rodeo.
Bleach to rescue.
Bleach it out
While white shows all, bleach removes all. That’s right. If you have a beige sofa, stains still show but try bleaching that.
You can’t. Put into this perspective, bright white furniture ain’t so bad because you can nuke it with bleach and voila, it’s clean again. Not that we like doing it weekly because it’s a lot of work peeling the sofa and chair covers off and then fitting them on again – tugging, pulling, stretching and finagling the covers back onto the sofa frame.
It’s tough work, but when they gleam in all their glory, once again worth it.
Goes with any color scheme
Who doesn’t like changing up their room decor. A new paint job. Rearranging furniture.
New pillows. New area rug. These are all simple and inexpensive ways to give your living room an overhaul. Do you know what’s not cheap?
A new sofa. A quality new sofa will set you back at least $1,000 and easily escalate to $3,000 or more. This is where the white sofa comes in handy.
It seriously does. You can pretty much make any change you want to your living room and your white sofa will look splendid. If you have a brown leather sofa, that’s not always the case.
Blue sofa… not always gonna look great. But your white sofa will look golden no matter what changes you make.
The Chameleon-Benefit
This is going to sound idiotic because in a way it is. Your white sofa, especially if you have kids, will become chameleon-like with the throws and pillows you cover it with to protect its whiteness.
Talk about irony, right?
You buy a white sofa because it looks like a million bucks only to cover it up with a throw or two so that your drunken brother-in-law doesn’t slosh red wine all over it. But relying on throws, blankets and pillows isn’t all bad. In fact, here’s your chance to have some fun.
Buy three or four different throws and a stack of $20 pillows. Swap then out every month and it’ll be like getting a brand new sofa every month not to mention a minor living room decor overhaul. The best part is it costs peanuts and takes only minutes to execute.
Who said this stuff wasn’t fun? It’s faster, cheaper and more fun to accessorize (ahem, protect) your white sofa with throws and pillows than figuring out how to clean your white sofa. Cleaning anything is a total drag.
Making things pretty and new is loads of fun.
What we don’t do with our white furniture
We didn’t buy slipcovers
Slipcovers have their place, but they’re not easy to put on. Instead, we rely on throws and blankets. The right throw looks great.
You might need two to cover it up, but it does the job. While they need a little straightening here and there, it’s not a big deal. Of course, our boys don’t straighten them out but there’s only so much you can expect from a four-year-old. One day he’ll get it.
No plastic covers
I’d rather drop a sheet on the sofa than wrap it in plastic. Plastic protects but it rejects. It’s ugly. It’s hot.
We prefer to cover our white furniture so that it still looks great and protects.
Important White Sofa Buying Tip
You really want to make sure you can remove and machine-wash the upholstery. If you can’t do this, you’re asking for trouble. We’ve washed the upholstery more times than we can count.
If it weren’t for being able to do that, it would either be a disgrace in our living room or we’d have all new furniture by now.
Will you buy a white sofa now?
Are you convinced? Maybe you were on the fence and will now pull the trigger.
