Embracing the dark furniture stage

I wanted to lighten and brighten my living room. So, I perused copious decorating photos and settled on one that highlighted crisp white slipcovers. The Mom-Turned-Designer of that room gushed that she might have 9 kids, 5 dogs, and 3 long haired cats in her house, but keeping the slipcovers crisp and white was as easy as doing the laundry.

I...should...have...stopped...right...there.

Doing laundry easy? Easy? EASY? For a woman who awoke to the sound of her poor husband Febreezing yesterday's socks, I know that easy and laundry are incompatable. But, when has that ever stopped me?

I bought crisp, white slipcovers for my Ikea couch and chair. Kept them on for 1.5 days. After I lost my voice gently reminding my family not to touch them, I realized that white probably wasn't practical outside of fairyland. Hmmmm, I thought. Dilemma. What to do? What to do? Ah, yes, Rit dye. Easy peasy. Thinking to start small, I bought 2 boxes of a sunny yellow for my chair. Apparently sunny yellow means different things to different people. But, still, I could wear sunglasses until I found another color to cover it up. Undaunted, I moved on to the sofa. And the chair again. In a nice, safe tan. Jason decided to help. After the sofa cover went into the washing machine, I told him that I didn't think I should add the chair cover. He was determined all of it was going to fit--that gleam in his eye should have warned me, but again, when has that ever stopped either of us? Crammed full of dye and covers, the washer did its thing. What came out was a splotchy flesh colored mess. Not attractive. Still undaunted, I got four more boxes of tan dye and went to work again. This time, I was much smarter. I decided to just do the sofa, and I called the Rit people for help. All I had to do was use color remover and then re-dye the cover. Simple. Now instead of a blotchy flesh colored mess, I have a used peanut butter frosting colored, blotchy mess that for some reason glows in the dark a bit.

I had to face two cold, hard truths. One, I will never die, er, dye again. Two, we are in the dark furniture stage of our lives. What the heck was I thinking? White slipcovers? Three kids? A man who needs a bib when he eats? A fluffy white dog who steps in non-white, foul-smelling things that he tracks all over my house including on the furniture? Even in the used peanut butter frosting color, this sofa cover is an endangered species.

Of course, I could always dye it black...