What was that, you say? Something about how dumb it was to get a white couch for the outdoors? Where it rains and where there’s dirt? And, most especially when you have a dog who immediately claimed it as hers even though it was meant for you to fall asleep on next to a raging-yet-calm fire? Admittedly, these are good questions and I can tell you mostly honestly that this couch has remained clean with just a teensy bit of work on my part. Wanna know how we’re keeping our outdoor couch clean? Okay!

Surprisingly, this couch, by Fernhill that we bought on Target online, doesn’t get that dirty considering everything I just said. It’s just dog hair and paw prints, both of which are quite noticeable on white. So here’s how we’re maintaining some level of cleanliness:

First of all, if you want a couch outdoors, it should be an outdoor couch as the fabric is most likely already protected against weather. Water beads up and dissipates pretty quickly on this couch so we have felt comfortable leaving it out in the rain. Although, if we know it will rain for several days in a row or if we know we are having guests over and we want to protect it beforehand, we’ll bring it into the garage until we want to bring it back out.

The seat cushion covers zip off so, this fall when there will be very few lazy lounging days outside, I’ll finally wash them, but I haven’t seen the need to do that yet. We bought Scotchgard heavy duty water shield that I will use on the couch after the cushion covers get washed to protect the fabric.

To get out dirt, I bought 303 multi-surface cleaner spray for indoor/outdoor living and a hard-bristled scrub brush and have used them several times to get out the dirt. It works pretty damn well. For light cleaning, I have used Lysol wipes, but that is really only for super light cleaning. I have tried a mini, handheld vacuum to pick up the hair and that has NOT worked. I have discovered that a simple lint brush works best to get up all that dog hair.

So, how we’ve been keeping this outdoor couch clean, in short:

And that’s really all it takes to keep the couch looking spiffy.