You’d be hard-pressed to find a person who doesn’t think that their pet is the best thing in the whole world. There are so many upsides to owning a pet that most people don’t ever really think about the downsides unless faced with them directly. In some cases, like with the uncleanliness of pets, this can be an issue if you’re not prepared. To help you make sure your house is as tidy as possible, we’ve put together a list of tips to keep your furniture clean with pets around.

Keep Pets off the Furniture

While we realize that training your dog or cat to stay off the furniture may seem like an impossible task, it’s the most effective, by far. Your pet can’t get your couch dirty if they’re never on it in the first place. Plus, the claws on your pets can be very sharp, which can rip up the fabric over time.

Groom Them Regularly

Since we know that most people like to have their pets sit with them up on the furniture, we’re going to focus on our other tips, like grooming pets as often as you can. Whether you get it done professionally or you do it yourself, removing all your pet’s dead hair and cutting it on occasion will lessen the amount of it that will accumulate on your furniture and in other places around the house.

Have Something To Clean Up Hair Nearby

No matter how often you groom them, though, they will likely still manage to get hair all over the place. That’s why it’s a good idea to have something to clean it up with. Most people use vacuums, but they involve a lot of setting up to use and aren’t readily available like a lint roller or other handheld hair removal products could be. The easy access and use of these items can make cleaning up pet hair a quick and painless process.

Wipe Up Messes As Soon as You See Them

Not all pet messes involve hair—some involve a bodily fluid that your pet couldn’t hold any longer. While these messes shouldn’t happen frequently, you’ll want to have cleaning supplies on hand to clean up any messes before they soak into your furniture. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to get out.

Cover Your Furniture

No matter what you do or how hard you try, knowing these tips to keep your furniture clean with pets isn’t always enough. Sometimes, you’ll need to actively protect your couch with a slipcover. These can be easily removed and cleaned in the washer anytime they get dirty. You can also buy ones that are better at repelling pet hair, like leather or microfiber. Regardless of what you choose, we have sofa slipcovers that will fit your couch perfectly and protect it from whatever messes your pet leaves behind.

No matter how careful you are or how often you clean, keeping your furniture stain-free can feel like an impossible task, especially if you have pets or children running around the house. However, one reason it’s so hard is that your focus is on prevention and reaction rather than protection. If you protect your furniture, spills are less likely to become permanent fixtures. The best way to protect your upholstery is with slipcovers. If you want to know how they can help in each room of your house, keep reading our guide on how to make your home spill-proof with cushion covers.

Living Room

With more families opting to eat meals in the living room to watch TV with their dinner, spills are starting to become more common on couches and chairs, especially with kids in this room. Even if your furniture has removable cushions, they can still be a challenge to clean, particularly if you don’t notice the stain right away. To combat that, consider using cushion slipcovers. The ones in our store use elastic so that you can easily remove them for quick cleaning. After a trip through the washer and dryer, your sofa will look like new again.

Dining Room

Though more people are eating on the couch, most spills still happen in the dining room. Even though most surfaces in this room are made of hard materials that are easy to clean, if your family uses this room often for more than just eating, you probably still have cushions on your chairs or barstools. While these are great for board game nights or big family dinners, they can be hard to clean if a spill occurs. Cushion slipcover would be a great help here as well.

Backyard Patio

The final area where you can make your home spill-proof with cushion covers is your backyard patio. If you like to have weekly cookouts, you probably have some comfy porch furniture to sit on and enjoy your food outside. If so, spills can occur out here as well, and since all your cushions sit out in the sun during the day, the stains they leave behind can very quickly get baked in. At least if you have a slipcover on them, they’ll be notably easier to clean and save from stains.

Regardless of your reason for needing slipcovers, they can be quite handy for your furniture compared to alternative options, such as reupholstering or buying replacements. This is especially true for large sectional couches. Now that you’ve decided that slipcovers are the way to go, you need to find out which type will work for your needs. That’s why we’ve created a guide on how to find a sectional couch cover that fits perfectly for you.

Ready-Made Slipcovers

These slipcovers are the ones that you’ve likely seen on store shelves in the past. They are well-priced and readily available to anybody who is in the market for them. They are also easy to remove and clean, as they usually have zippers and are almost always machine washable. However, their cheapness can show in terms of quality and how loosely they fit your sofa. The constant movement can cause them to rip, leaving them useless.

Loose-Fit Slipcovers

If ease of removal is a plus for you, then loose-fit slipcovers are your best bet. They are also known as furniture throws, so in some ways, they’re more like a blanket than a slipcover, although they offer the same level of protection. Other than being easier to remove for cleaning, the looseness of these sheets allows them not to tear as easily since they aren’t tucked in or held to the couch tightly.

Semi-Custom Slipcovers

For those who want to save some money and have a better fit than ready-made slipcovers offer, semi-custom slipcovers are the ideal fit for you. If your couch is basic enough, you’ll be able to order a set that fits over it with ease and has little to no slack. All you’ll need to do is take a few measurements in advance so that the company can get the dimensions as close as possible. These types of slipcovers are a little bit harder to remove but just as easy to clean.

Custom Slipcovers

Finally, if you want a perfect fit and style for your slipcovers, customs slipcovers are the way to go. They are a bit pricier, but you’ll be getting your money’s worth. Companies handcraft these slipcovers according to the exact measurements of your couch. That way, nobody will even notice that your couch has a cover. You can also pick the type and color of fabric you want, but keep in mind that your choice may affect whether they will be machine washable. Hopefully, reading through our guide on how to find a sectional couch cover that fits perfectly for you has helped you decide on which kind of slipcovers you want. If you think that custom sectional sofa covers are the best choice for you, be sure to check out what we have to offer in order to make your furniture look exquisite.

In general, slipcovers have many inherent advantages that you wouldn’t be able to attain if you didn’t use them. However, specific attributes are way more beneficial to chairs than they are to other pieces of furniture, which is why we wanted to make a list of the main benefits of chair slipcovers.

Fixes Mismatched Furniture

We don’t know about you, but one of the most common things we see in houses is a chair that doesn’t match the other couches in the room. This is usually because the chair was bought separately or was given by a family member or friend. Despite that, there are times that the different color actually works well in the room, but most of the time it doesn’t. That’s when custom chair slipcovers come in handy. They can be made for the specific purpose of bringing your living room together. We have so many different colors and patterns available on our website; you’re bound to find a great combination that won’t necessitate changing the look of every other piece of furniture.

Adds Protection

Sure, slipcovers add a layer of protection to anything you put them on, but chairs are the most important ones that you need to do this for. In a majority of households, especially ones that only have one resident, chairs are probably the most used piece of furniture outside of the bed. Unfortunately, that means the chairs are going to go through a lot more wear and tear than other pieces—so, over time, they’ll just look worse compared to everything else. On top of standard wear and tear, chairs are more likely to receive stains or pieces of food stuck in them. Slipcovers will help protect them from that as well. If you’re going to take extra steps to safeguard anything in your house, you should always start with the chair.

Perfect for Rocking Chairs

Instead of using slipcovers, some people simply throw a blanket over their furniture. While this is a viable method, it doesn’t work very well for rocking chairs since the movement doesn’t allow the blankets to stay in place. Plus, when a rocking chair gets fully extended, the blanket might not fit it as well. On the other hand, customs slipcovers are a perfect solutuion. They are made to order based on the dimensions you give us. That way, no matter the configuration or how much you rock it, the slipcover will remain tightly on your chair.

Easier To Clean

Since chairs are significantly smaller than most couches, this makes slipcovers for chairs easier to clean. You won’t have as many pieces to remove, and once you get them all off, they won’t take up as much space in the washer. This will allow you to wash your slipcovers with other clothes and sheets more easily, instead of having to waste a cycle on only your couch slipcovers.

So you finally bought a new bed to replace that dingy one that you’ve had ever since you graduated—congrats! You’re moving up in the world! However, buying a new bed isn’t the end. Now that you have it, it’s time to make it look good in your current room. Here are the steps for properly dressing a bed and what you will need to do so.

Valance Sheet

For this list, we’ll start at the bottom of the bed and move up since that’s likely the way you will have to set yours up. The valance sheet isn’t a necessary addition, but it will make your bed look better overall. Its primary purpose is to cover up an unsightly bed frame or any boxes that you store underneath it. You put it on the bed frame before the mattress.

Mattress Protector

Before you get that mattress into place, you might want to enclose it in a mattress protector. Many people skip these because these plastic sheets are often loud and uncomfortable. They can be quite useful, however. They’ll protect your mattress from stains and spilled liquids that would normally be difficult to clean up. Plus, the protector can also shield you from allergens and bed bugs that may take up residence inside the bed.

Mattress Topper

If your mattress is kind of cheap or you decided to use a mattress protector, these toppers can help make your bed more comfortable overall. They usually go onto your bed like any other fitted sheet and are easy to remove for cleaning when necessary.

Sheets

Now it’s time for the most important step for properly dressing a bed: the sheets. These are what your body will be in contact with the most as you sleep, so you’ll want to make sure you are satisfied with them. The selection of sheets in stores can be limited, so if you really want a certain kind of material or color scheme for them, we’d recommend getting them custom-made. We have a vast selection of fitted mattress covers available online that you can customize to your heart’s desire, so be sure to check them out if you’re interested.

Comforter or Duvet

Regardless of what mattress topper you choose, it will be the centerpiece of your room. This is the part of the bed that everyone notices when they walk into the room, so pick something that matches the tone and style of your bedroom. Also, you’ll want to make sure that whichever one you get is comfortable to sleep under.

Pillows

No bed is complete without a set of pillows. Whether you have one or ten, your pillows will add to the feel of the room as a whole, so be sure to find some comfy and vibrant ones that will make sleeping in your new bed like a dream.

Most people only tend to redecorate their houses for Christmas or other occasional holidays, but true at-home decorators change the design of their homes depending on the season. Nothing quite beats the feeling that deep reds and oranges can give a house in the middle of autumn or soft pastels can bring in spring. If redecorating your whole home once every few months seems like too much, we recommend starting with just one room to get a feel for it. The best room to start with is the dining room since it’s a high-traffic location but not one with too much that you need to change. If you’re interested, read our list of easy ways to change up your dining room for each season.

Change up the Table Décor

No matter how you have your dining room set up, your table is the centerpiece of the room. Because of this, it’s the most important part to change if you want the room to have a different feel for each season. If you currently use placemats or a tablecloth, those will be the first things to swap. You should have a set of them for each season. Restocking your cabinets with season-themed dishes is another great way to give your dining room the appearance you want. Granted, guests won’t see them most of the time, but they’ll add to the overall feeling when everyone sits down to eat. Don’t worry; we didn’t forget about the chairs. They’re among the most notable parts of your table. The best way to change them is with dining chair covers. We have slipcovers available in any color you’ll need to match the season in our online store.

Set Up Decorations

This is probably the easiest way to change up your dining room for each season. Standard decorations are simple to set up and put back away. One good example is getting potted plants for the spring and summer seasons. Having a string of leaves hanging up would be great for autumn, and a couple of cute snowmen will fit well in winter. You should change any centerpieces or candles you have as well. And if you don’t already have them, add some to your home. Setting out a bowl of fresh fruit in the summer or a cornucopia full of vegetables in the fall are both great ways to spruce up your table. If you have candles, try to find scents and colors befitting each season. There are plenty of stores that will have just the fragrance you’re looking for.

Hang Up a Few Things

Environmental paintings are unrivaled for setting the mood for the time of year, so be sure to have one or two on hand for each season. They don’t have to be pictures of the outdoors, however. Finding ones that simply have the color scheme you want can also work effectively. If you don’t want to have that many picture frames on hand, we recommend buying a mirror or two. If you have them at the right angles, they’ll make the inside of your house look just like the world outside when your window treatments are open. There’s no better way to match the season than to reflect what’s right outside your window.