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Getting The Wrinkles Out Of Slipcovers

After being stuck in transit for over two weeks, the slipcovers for my new Ikea Henriksdal armchairs finally arrived!

It was like Christmas morning, opening that package! Little by little this room is coming together.

So here we are with another edition of Rocket Science. Yep – a post dedicated to getting the wrinkles out. I am such a June Cleaver today.

As  you can imagine, the slipcovers come out of their package wrinkled like crazy. {I couldn’t help but put one right on the chair. I was dying to see it on there in my dining room!!}

Wrinkles and all, I’m so happy with them! They are comfortable, casual and surprisingly sturdy.
Yes, I have a very large, furry dog and three wild and crazy kids, and yes, we eat a lot of Italian food with red sauce and drink red wine nightly occasionally, and I still chose white slipcovered dining chairs. For the table that we eat at every day. Yes I did.
I might soon be eating my words instead of red sauce, but I love the fact that these slipcovers can be washed and bleached. I’ll report back to you as to how they hold up in an active house like mine.
I wouldn’t define my style as shabby chic, but I think if you’re going to buy cotton duck slipcovered furniture like all the Ikea chairs and sectionals that so many of us have now, you have to be open to a certain level of wrinkliness. It’s the nature of the fabric that it’s not going to be perfectly wrinkle-free, especially after being sat in.
However – little preliminary de-wrinkling when they first come out of the package or the wash will make your slipcovers look wonderful.
Joan of For The Love Of A House was so sweet to offer me some suggestions after I posted about her chairs being my inspiration for this purchase. Joan suggesting not putting the slipcovers in the dryer after washing; let them air dry and then iron when damp. I will definitely be using this tip. Thanks Joan!
When de-wrinkling straight from the package, I used a combination of ironing, and also my favorite product ever, Downy Wrinkle Releaser (fyi:  this is not a sponsored post. I’m just a big fan of cutting corners and taking the easy way out of things!)  Ironing gets out the major wrinkles (and is a complete pain in the patootie to do with a slipcover); the Wrinkle Releaser will smooth out wrinkles that you incur when putting the slips on your chairs. You can skip the ironing altogether too – check out these two chair backs. The one on the left was ironed and then wrestled onto the chair; the one on the right was de-wrinkled only with the Wrinkle Releaser, after the slipcover was put on.

The trick with the Wrinkle Releaser to spray generously, then pull the fabric taut. Pulling the fabric does make it ripple a bit so beware. A cloth on the floor catches excess spray (and makes me think a striped Dash & Albert rug would look cute in here!)

The slips can definitely use a bit more Wrinkle Releaser, but I’m not going to be too fussy with them. The goal is casual, comfortable, but pulled together.

I love the scale of the chairs in our dining room; they definitely anchor the table a bit more. The other great thing about them is that they are lightweight and I can use them in the adjoining living room for additional seating, or the kids can easily pull one up the computer in the office armoire.

One baby step forward!

Now off to clean my house – it looks a lot cleaner in these pictures than it is in real life!
Hope you have something fun planned for the weekend – a Christmas tree perhaps??
Enjoy and thanks for visiting my little blog!

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Comments

  2. Dana Frieling says

    Yea! So glad they arrived and you love them. I have a white rug in the kids' tv room. Smart?…no. Would I do it again?…yep!

    Reply

  3. pam {simple details} says

    Just beautiful, there's something to be said for that fresh, crisp and white freshly ironed look, June! I borrowed my friend's steamer to see how it worked on my sectional (it was a cheap $20 one). I liked the outcome and it was super easy, I think I'll be getting one. Love your stylish new look!

    Reply

  6. Privet and Holly says

    Lisa, they look great!
    I have off white duck
    slips on my dining room
    chairs that I like to use
    in the summer to give
    the room a lighter look,
    although last year I left
    them on through Christmas
    and they never came off!
    Probably because I don't
    want to do the wash-iron-
    wrestle dance : ) But
    perhaps armed with the
    wrinkle release it would
    be less tedious!

    I am catching up with my
    blogs after being away and
    then getting back on top
    of things this week. It's
    going to be 50 degrees
    tomorrow {yay!} so we will
    put up our outside greens
    and lights, which we would
    normally do over Thanksgiving.
    Glad now that we waited, as
    it will mean less frozen fingers…..

    Happy Saturday!

    xo Suzanne

    Reply