Personally, I hate sofa slipcovers. Then again, that is based almost exclusively on the fact that a) I am a man and b) I am lazy. I guess, then, that I should talk about them more in the practical sense. I can do that, I think, but when it comes right down to it a sofa slipcover is all about personal preference and how much work you want to put into your sofa.
Sofa slipcovers, if you don’t know (which would surprise me, but bare with me for those who stumbled across this blog on accident and are still reading), are basically clothes for your couch. A sofa slipcover is shaped like a sofa and “slips” over it to cover it. They allow you to protect the original sofa with a cover that can be cleaned more easily. They also allow you to change the look and color of your sofa readily. These are certainly positives.
Additionally, the right sofa slipcover can give your sofa a great shabby chic look that is pretty popular. It is very much a Greenwich Village look for those of you into that New York loft appeal. So, again, that is certainly a positive. What’s not to like? There are actually a couple of things of which I think you should beware when considering a sofa slipcover.
For one, you have to beware of badly made sofa slipcovers. For instance, many are made of cotton. Cotton shrinks, cotton stains, and cotton tears. These are also three things you don’t want happening to a slipcover. So if you decide you do want a sofa slipcover, either avoid cotton or at least look for a well made, preshrunk cotton that will help you avoid these pitfalls.
Secondly, slipcovers are made separately from sofas (unless you buy a slipcover sofa, but that is for another time). That means that you have to make sure that the sofa slipcover you buy will fit your existing sofa. If it does not, then you are stuck with either a poorly fitting cover or with making a trip back to the store to exchange and possibly not for the first time.
So the best way to think of it is this: if you are going to get a sofa slipcover be careful. Shop around, look online, look in stores, and
measure carefully (as you should do with any furniture purchase). Then again, you could just go with the sofa you bought anyway and not cover it at all. Or maybe that’s just me!
