10 ways to make light furniture survive dog fur and dog paws
If you're a pet-friendly household, train your dog to protect your white and beige furniture
I didn’t initially intend to buy a beige love seat. I started off with a rent-to-own black couch that had decorative gray streaks. Unfortunately, one of my first pieces of furniture (that I paid off within a year) went through one-too-many moves from my off-campus apartment in college to my childhood bedroom for one year to two more of my own apartment rentals. That black-and-gray couch lasted a surprising 11 years before I couldn’t justify keeping it anymore.
Then, I bought a coffee brown, three-seater couch with an ottoman that I absolutely loved to sit on the edge of to watch movies or stretch my legs. Too bad I couldn’t predict the future and didn’t know about a new upstairs neighbor who ran on a treadmill early in the morning and a property manager who kept blaming me for a dirty air conditioner filter. I had no intention of moving out of that last rental after eight years, but I could not get along with these two women at all.
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When the head mover showed up with one friend, he took one look at that couch, one look at me and told me that my ginormous couch would never fit up the banister at my condo rental. After an hour of two movers, a maintenance man and a work colleague fighting to get this $1,000 couch up the steps to the third floor, the couch frame finally ended up outside by the dumpster.
I went from a three-seater that two people could stretch out on to a two-seater that became very entertaining to cuddle on, specifically considering three guys I dated were over 6’0. (A couple of houseguests gave up entirely on stretching out and made use of the brown couch pillows that I refused to give up.)
But none of my apartments or the condo rental ever allowed pets. When I wanted to see or play with dogs, I went to my parents’ home. My first dog had already passed away while I was attending the first of two colleges, and I could go hang out with their second dog in their home any time I wanted to. Neither dog was allowed on the furniture (I own photographs of me physically putting the dogs on the couches when they were on vacation 🤫🤐), and their furniture was black and purple anyway.
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When I moved out of the condo rental after a few years and decided I was done renting, I missed my ottoman couch enough to buy another brown couch. Since I would own my next home this time, I figured this would be my last move. Still, just in case this purchase didn’t work out, I bought a matching beige ottoman for the lighter couch so I could kick my feet up when I wanted to.
Dogs are mortal enemies of white and beige furniture
The millisecond I got a hyperactive dog, this beige couch became extremely tricky to keep clean. In the first year, Puppy Junee leaped on this ottoman so many times that she broke one leg off. I removed the other three, knowing replacement legs were a lost cause for a dog with the Zoomies who hadn’t been fully crate-trained yet.
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Even after vacuuming and scrubbing both couches clean every Sweeper Sunday and spraying them with various Febreze scents, the camera flash kept tattling on me: “She has a pet!” (And that’s even if you ignored the human-sized dog couch and Dog Aging Certificate next to the couch.)
If I had the dog before I had the furniture, I wouldn’t have humored the idea of a couch this color. However, this love seat was a replacement I never intended to buy; that stupid banister forced me into furniture shopping. Vacuuming and scrubbing just weren’t doing the trick.
Since then, I’ve purchased an ottoman cover and swapped it for a new ottoman, multi-colored pillow covers and a non-slip couch cover, which significantly improved the look and helped me avoid buying a new (and darker) couch. I love the way the beige couch looks now, even when my dog immediately jumped on the couch to inspect all the new stuff.
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Couch shampooing would work for a while, but then the furniture could be dirty-looking all over again. In addition to consistent cleaning, I wish I used these 10 other cleaning and household tips as a new dog owner with light-colored furniture.