• Home
  • Blog
  • Project Gallery
  • About Me
    • About Old Salt Farm
    • Contact Info
  • Terms of Service & Privacy Policy
  • My Book
    • Email
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Old Salt Farm

Farmhouse + DIY

  • DIY
    • DIY Home Decor
    • Paint & Stain Projects
    • Re-purposed Projects
    • Woodworking
    • Outdoor Projects
  • For the Home
    • Old Salt Farm
    • Farmhouse Style
    • Home Decor & Styling
    • Cleaning
    • Organization
    • Entertaining
    • Crafts
      • Printables
      • Fonts
      • Silhouette
      • All Crafts
      • Kids’ Crafts
  • Holidays
    • 4th of July
    • Back to School
    • Christmas
    • Cinco de Mayo
    • Easter
    • Fall
    • Halloween
    • New Year’s Eve
    • Spring
    • St. Patrick’s Day
    • Summer
    • Thanksgiving
    • Valentine’s Day
    • Winter
  • Family Life
    • Kids’ Ideas
  • Gift Ideas
    • Birthdays
    • Father’s Day
    • Mother’s Day
    • Teachers
    • Thank you
    • Thinking of You
    • Weddings
    • Babies
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
    • Style
  • Recipes
    • Appetizers
    • Breads
    • Breakfast
    • Crockpot
    • Cookies & Bars
    • Desserts
    • Main Dishes
    • Soups
    • Snacks
    • Drinks
    • Holidays
    • Game Day
  • The Farmhouse Finder
  • Shop

Apr 8, 2020

White Couches with Kids…REAL Life Pros and Cons

White couches with kids…a real life list of pros and cons, plus my tips and tricks to keeping light and white couches clean!

White Couches with Kids

We have a white couch in our library, and an off-white sectional in our family room. The white couch is from Ikea that we’ve had almost a year. We bought it when we built the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and re-did the entire space last spring. In addition to a reading space, we also use it for music practice, and so we’re in there pretty much every day.

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. If you click on a link and make a purchase, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The sectional is from Pottery Barn, and we’ve had it for eight years. It’s always been in our family room, where we spend the most amount of time, and it gets heavy use. We absolutely love it. It’s been through a lot, but has really held up through all of our kiddos!

Sectional | Blanket Ladder | Grain Stripe Pillow (similar) | Cable Knit Pillow

White Couches With Kids

One of the questions and comments I get the most is about our light and white couches. I have six kids, and most people want to know how I make that work, live with them, and keep them clean. And it’s a really great question. We’ve had them the majority of our kids’ lives, from the time they were tiny, so it’s been something we’ve learned to do.

To be honest, the main reason I’ve chosen light or white couches is for aesthetics. I like my spaces to be light and bright, and that’s harder to achieve with darker couches. (I’ve never really loved gray, so that hasn’t been an option for me either.) I just really love the way they look. It doesn’t have to be white, but lighter colors are just more my style. (We do have a leather sectional in our theater, but the room and ceiling are painted dark!) I’ve had darker colors before in my home–both in furnishings and walls–and it just wasn’t for me. I’ve always craved really light, airy spaces.

White Couches with Kids
Couch | Ottoman | Rug | Basket

A secondary reason is that they’re neutral and so versatile. I can easily switch out pillows and throw blankets for different seasons and holidays.

Last, but certainly not least, is the fact they both have washable slipcovers. I’m kind of crazy about keeping things clean, and I love love love that I can just take them off and wash them. I spot clean as needed, and once a month all the covers come off to be washed. Of course there will be smudges and sometimes stains, but that’s when they come off and I wash them. And honestly, I think no matter what type of couch, or color it is, there’s always something that you have to watch out for.

White Couches With Kids

OUR RULES FOR LIVING WITH WHITE COUCHES

We also have rules that help keep not just the couches clean, but our whole home. They really work! They’re pretty straightforward rules, and honestly, I’d have the same rules regardless of what color our couches were. (We don’t have any pets, so we don’t have any issues there.)

  • No shoes in the house
  • No food or drinks out of the kitchen
  • No crayons, markers, pens, pencils on the couch
  • Double check hands after eating, doing any artwork, playing outside

No shoes in the house keep everything cleaner, so that’s a basic rule at our house. As for the second rule, any kind of food out of the kitchen with little kids (really, any age) is a disaster, so it’s one that we established from the beginning. Occasionally we will put down a huge blanket and have a picnic, but that’s the exception, not the rule.

I always double check hands and faces after meals to make sure all the peanut butter or spaghetti sauce is all the way off. After they come in from playing outside, I try and check for copious amounts of dirt, which is very possible. We live in the country, and mud is pretty much synonymous with play.

I’ve made a real list of the pros and cons as I see them, after years of having light and white couches.

PROS OF LIGHT & WHITE COUCHES

  • Easy to throw in the wash on a regular basis, and as needed–and you’ll be able to tell!
  • Spot cleaning can be tricky on upholstered pieces (I’ve had them, and it was one reason I switched to washable slipcovers)
  • Classic and neutral—goes with several different styles
  • Super easy to change out pillows and throw blankets for different seasons and holidays
  • Lightens and brightens your space
  • If you have white couches, you can actually bleach them
  • Perfect farmhouse style!

CONS OF LIGHT & WHITE COUCHES

  • Regular washing takes time. It can be a pain to take them all off and put them back on again. It really takes almost all day to get them done.
  • I wash the cushion covers much more often than the slipcover that goes over the entire frame. That has resulted in the couch cushions being lighter than the one over the entire frame. It’s not hugely noticeable, but you can tell if you look for it. On a white couch that doesn’t matter, but on my lighter couch, it does.
  • Washing them so often can be hard on the zippers and hardware. We’ve had to replace some on our sectional, but we’ve also had it for eight years.
  • They’re not going to be perfect all of the time. You have to be prepared for that! You will get stains, and while in my experience most of them come out, you may end up with some that won’t. I’m a perfectionist, and I like things really clean, so I stay on top of it every day. It takes some effort, but now it’s just a part of my routine. And my kids have learned!
White Couches with Kids

Would I do it all over again, after living with it for so many years? Definitely. Are light and white couches doable with kids? Absolutely! And if you have questions, ask away!

More home ideas you might like…

  • The Best Places to Find Farmhouse Signs
  • Our Farmhouse Dutch Door: FAQ
  • Farmhouse Paint Colors
  • Our Bathroom Under the Stairs
White Couches with Kids


Share and save for later!

  • Share
  • Email

Filed Under: Farmhouse Style, For the Home, Furniture, Home Decor & Styling, Old Salt Farm | 4 Comments

« Previous post
Next post »

Lovely comments

  1. Donna P says

    May 11, 2020 at 1:48 pm

    what color are your walls?

    Reply
    • Old Salt Farm says

      May 12, 2020 at 6:40 pm

      They are all Benjamin Moore Decorator’s White! (trim too)

      Reply
  2. Sunny says

    Mar 3, 2021 at 12:57 am

    Hello! What about dyes from jeans rubbing off on the couch? Any issues? My jeans rub off on my light leather seats in my car and have damaged the seat. And the jeans are not cheap!

    Thanks for your tips! We love light rooms like you and are scared to pull the trigger in a light couch.

    Reply
    • Old Salt Farm says

      Mar 5, 2021 at 9:32 am

      I totally get it! We sit on our PB sectional that’s off white/cream with jeans all the time–heavy use in our family room. Never had a transfer of any kind from jeans in the 8 years since we purchased them. The white IKEA couch in our library gets less use–and I’ve never sat in jeans on it…I’m always in pajamas or yoga pants when I do! My kids have—and I’ve never had any blue rub off on the couches. However, I haven’t tested it with really dark jeans—some of them rub off on everything, and I would be very cautious of that. All of their jeans are lighter in color overall.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

 

search

COPYRIGHT POLICY

The images, tutorials, and content on oldsaltfarm.com are protected by copyright laws. DO NOT distribute or copy the content without written permission. You may not use any images without permission. DO NOT edit or remove watermarks from any image. Pictures are not to be changed or altered in any way, shape or form without my consent. Please do not copy text or reprint recipes without my permission. All ideas and printables are for your personal use only. By downloading any files or printables, you accept that they are FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. My patterns, ideas and tutorials are NOT intended for resale or re-distribution.

Interested in sharing one of my photos or projects? Fill out my Old Salt Farm Feature Agreement.

Please contact me with any questions. oldsaltfarm@gmail.com

© Old Salt Farm (Kierste Wade)

CREATE AT YOUR OWN RISK

Any and all content on this website is created for inspiration purposes only. Creating with my suggested methods, products, instructions, tutorials, and tools is at your own risk. Please ensure you are following proper guidelines with anything used, and seek professional advice if you don’t know how to do something.

Old Salt Farm is for entertainment purposes only. All tutorials and demonstrations are not intended to be professional advice, nor substitute as such, and I make no guarantees as to the procedures and information here.

Read my full disclosure here.

AMAZON DISCLOSURE

Kierste Wade (Old Salt Farm) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Amazon offers a small commission on products sold through their affiliate links. When you make a purchase after clicking on one of those links, I earn a small commission that helps support this blog, at no extra cost to you. Read my full disclosure here.
Copyright © 2021 Old Salt Farm, Custom site by Moonsteam Design.

Cookies

This website requires the use cookies. By using this site, you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy.