If you’re sitting right now, chances are you’re on your sofa. I myself am in a full recline writing from mine. The most used seat in the house deserves some preemptive measures to keep it not only intact but fully presentable. Short of adding a fitted slipcover, or encasing your sofa in plastic as past generations were known to do, there are easy, no-sew, washable ways to protect the cushions from dogs and cats, romping kids, and other wear and tear while adding visual interest. Here are our five favorite DIY approaches.
1. Add Something Soft
Above: Remodelista founding editor, Julie Carlson, and CEO/publisher, Josh Groves, at home in Mill Valley, California, on a sheepskin-layered Catherine Memmi sofa. Photograph by Matthew Williams from our first book, Remodelista: A Manual for the Considered Home. Above: Same sofa as above with a new ensemble of cushions and a Moroccan pom pom blanket, photographed by Leslie Williamson for the Apiece Apart feature on Julie and her daughter, Darcy. The blanket is a discontinued design from Twenty One Tonnes; find something similar at L’Aviva Home.
2. Tuck a Textile On Top
Above: In his Brooklyn living room, artist Wayne Pate tucked a vintage floral fabric around the seat cushions of his white canvas sofa. The surrounding paintings are by Pate—see his latest @waynepate, and take a look at his Paris-Inspired Fabric and Wallpaper and Painterly Tile Collection for Balineum. Above: In her Edinburgh apartment, Nina Plummer of Ellei Home has a Le Grand Air Sofa with a loose slipcover that looks like the seat cushions were blanketed in a natural linen sheet. Bedding, drop cloths, towels, and yardage of all sorts can easily be wrapped protectively around base cushions—and rearranged as required. Photograph by Nina Plummer. Above: In his New York apartment, creative director Matthew Axe folded a denim patchwork blanket—purchased at a Martha Stewart Living tag sale—atop his reupholstered Goodwill sofa. Photograph by Eric Piasecki from Quiet, Please: A Stylish Apartment in Bustling Jackson Heights, Queens.
Above: In her shades-of-white bungalow in Pasadena, LA designer Michaela Scherrer pet-proofed the living room sofas with linen slipcovers layered with white leather blankets. The linen serves as protection from cat claws and the leather as a dog guard that’s easy to spot clean. Photograph Matthew Williams from Remodelista: A Manual for the Considered Home. Above: A sheet-cloaked John Derian for Cisco Meadow Sofa greets visitors in the 1754 Maine house that builder-designer Anthony Esteves restored for his mother: see The New New England. Photograph by Greta Rybus Above:In a villa in the South of France designed in the late 1920s by Jacques Couëlle, interior designer and stylist Lauren Olivia unified a built-in banquette by covering its cushions in linen sheets. Photograph by Sarah Button.
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