I’ve been watching celebrity home tours and scrolling through Instagram lately, and it seems like every super-wealthy person with toddlers owns a pristine, bone-white couch. Like… do their kids not eat spaghetti? Do juice boxes not exist in Calabasas?
Genuinely curious, is it just for aesthetics? Do they just replace them every few months? Or is this some secret billionaire parenting hack I’m missing?
Would love to hear from interior designers, parents, or people who’ve seen this up close. How does this work??
If it gets messy they get the cleaners to clean it- if they can't they just replace it. If you're rich, a couch doesn't have to last 30 years.
*cries in 20-year-old sofa* You mean this thing has to make it another 10 years?
Our couch is 14 years old. I probably won’t get something nicer until my kids are in college. (My twins are 3).
Right. It's hard for normal people to realize exactly how rich rich people are. For me, I don't really think at all about spending $5 or $10 on something. Imagine if $5000 or $10000 was equally unimportant.
It's not just the filthy rich who can casually replace expensive furnishings.
The upper middle class have gotten significantly wealthier over the last 20+ years. Jeff Bezos ain't the only one who can afford a nanny and/or throw away a $10,000 white leather couch over a single juice stain. There's literally millions of Americans who can do that stuff.
It's a huge pet peeve of mine how much fault left wing messaging pins on billionaires and only billionaires. Meanwhile forums like Reddit are full of privileged delusional twats who think they're pure middle class and can't possibly afford higher taxes for social programs on their household incomes of "only" $400,000 or more.
You can get some juice stains out of white couches. Many stores sell durable fabric with stain protection. Also, you can take the fabric off and wash it or have it dry cleaned. My couch is not slip cover but I have zippers so it’s easy to remove. Obviously I would not have purple grape juice over a white couches, but if common sense is used then there is no issue.
Source: I have a white sectional with a puppy and 2 bonus toddlers.
It's not that the wealthy can afford to replace an item and not think twice about it. It takes time and energy. I abhor dealing with shopping for a custom sofa, waiting for it to be manufactured, and then having to arrange a window for it to be delivered. I guess if I was uber rich I would just have someone else deal with it, but I'm not.
I'm retired, but I still have a life and having to be home on a certain date at a certain time to accept delivery is a PITA.
My kids are grown, but I still avoid white so I don't have to deal with extensive cleaning and other issues. Once a year cleaning is enough for me. I replace when I have to.
Yes. The really wealthy will of course have staff to handle the PITA stuff. Put in a quick call to the interior designer they usually work with, say "get me all new furniture for the living room", and go stay at the other house for the week while the workers are there.
They don't let them on it. Most super wealthy give their kids somewhere else to chill out etc.
yup, the PS5 is in a dedicated games room
The Children’s Wing
Plus, they have nannies who can keep the kids out of the house most of the day.
I had a friend with a rich stepdad and they did have a children’s wing. Separated from the rest of the house by a breezeway as well.
Which is why the Chappelle bit “fuck yo’ couch, n***a!” is so hilarious.
A lot of expensive large homes treat the first living room like a reception area for guests and so on, there's usually a more personal separate living room, in addition to that maybe even more rooms, cinema room, game room etc
^^^ exactly, all these other comments are not giving the biggest reason. Their main living room is not actually their main living room, it's just used for entertaining guests.
I had a white sofa.
It was pretty easy to wipe clean.
Yeah I’m not rich but I have white sofas and kids. The thing about white (not off white) is that it’s really easy to clean. Stained? Peroxide (or bleach for some) and some.
I have a couple IKEA Ektorps from before kids - they’ve held up well over the years. The cushion and whole couch covers all come off and I just more regularly launder then because of the kids
I raised two boys and three German shepherds and had a white ektorp sectional the whole time. Thing was bomb proof, slipcovers washed beautifully.
Yeah OP is out to lunch on this one.
I have a white sofa and a 4 year old. We got a fabric that was easy to clean and so far everything wipes off with just water. I wouldn’t get suede or something not durable but white has been fine from age 2-4 at my house!
We are not rich but it wasn’t an insanely expensive sofa and my kid does eat things like strawberries (wipes off), crackers, or popcorn on it.
This is what I'm thinking with a dog and a toddler. My kid eats spaghetti, just not on the couch for crying out loud
If you have a white couch then you don't eat spaghetti on it...
I don't have a white sofa, but I also don't allow food outside the kitchen/dining room. I never had spaghetti on any sofa of any color.
We have an inexpensive one and the covers are washable…but also I keep a blanket over it unless people come over so I don’t have to worry…purchased pre kids
My parents got a white couch and now the dogs (who previously were ALWAYS on the couch) aren’t allowed on the couch. It is the dumbest most annoying thing having to hear them yell at them about it. Like you set yourself up.
Recently bought our first house, we have 3 kids. Decided to buy a really nice dining table & chairs. Really didn't think it through as the chairs are a cream colour and are now absolutely filthy.
Just accepted that I've fucked up and will have to live with looking at every single stain daily. About 2 months in and they look awful. Glad I went for the blue couch!
Seat covers for the chairs!!!
Straight jackets for the children!!!
😅
You could also get them reupholstered
We have an ugly hand me down table and chairs we got for free, and I was so eager to replace when we first moved in. But now with a baby and a toddler I’m glad. No big deal if it gets spilled on and scratched. We can buy nicer furniture when the kids are grown up.
I was not rich but we did have a very very light cream sofa (and chairs) when I was growing up. It really just wasn’t an issue? It was always clean, and if something got on it we cleaned it.
Pretty sure (this was back in the day) we rented carpet cleaners 2-3 times a year and would shampoo it then, but it was never dirty and stained.
I think the biggest part was probably that even as little kids we sat at the table to eat (or the coffee table if we were watching tv) and our hands were always clean. The rule was every time you came in the house (from school, from playing outside whatever) you washed your hands. So we didn’t have dirt on our hands touching things. We typically ate at the table, so there wasn’t the running around with food thing. Cups had lids. And if there were messes they were spot cleaned before they out of control.
Thinking back, we learned pretty early how to get stains out of the fabrics or carpet. My parents were crazy, but they had us do small tasks. So if we got marker on the carpet you weren’t “punished” really but you were given a bucket of water, an old toothbrush, a towel, and the bottle of “shout stain remover” and taught how to clean it up. So eventually if we were playing and got a mark on something we just… cleaned it up?
By we I mean me. I did this. My siblings too sure. But I want to clarify that I watched a lot of “zoom” and “out of the box” and kid’s shows that had craft projects so I was a big DIY-er and what others may have called (allegedly) mischievous… allegedly.
TLDR: we had rules to keep our hands clean, keep food and drink contained, and clean up little messes before they became big messes, even when we were very young.
Same here. I figured out how to clean up after myself as a preteen because I didn’t want to get in trouble for staining something!
We have light colored furniture and area rugs, we don't allow food or non-lid cups in the living room. We have a table or counter to eat at. Movie nights - we do allow them to use a snack tray, bc usually those snacks can just be vacuumed.
We don't eat on the couch!
You can eat on the balcony, in the kitchen or in the dining room.
Hydro and oleophobic fabrics exist. These things are super easy to clean.
Most wealthy people in my experience the children have a huge playroom. They don’t go into the proper living room.
I have a light coloured couch. Pale grey. Anyone eating on my couch is gonna lose a hand. You eat at the table. You drink at the table. Or you sit on the floor. You don’t eat on a couch. Or carpet.
Certainly not a billionaire myself but I am confused why people are allowing children to eat/drink while on or near the couch in the first place. Child or adult, the kitchen and dining room are for eating and drinking not the livingroom/sitting room/family room or bedrooms for that matter.
If the food is capable of leaving a crumb or a drop of liquid, it doesn't leave the kitchen/dining area. That covers pretty much everything. Banana is fine, and some nuts like cashews I guess, but I'm struggling to think of much else.
I'm more neurotic about it than most, but I do think that if more people paid attention to just how many crumbs they spread by eating common foods, they might keep it to one area too.
Because not everyone wants to live their life with a stick up their arse
Come. Having manners is best thing to live in society. Everyone should try it.
Eating on the sofa or not in your own home has nothing to do with manners
My parents have a white leather couch. We aren’t allowed to eat or drink on it. She keeps throwing blankets over a lot of it too to keep it relatively safe from the pets.
Growing up, we had a brown leather couch are were similarly not allowed to eat or drink on it. The couch in our play area was like 20 years old and already stained, but we still weren’t allowed to take food or anything up to it. If we ate a snack it was at the dinner table (which was separate from the nicer table we used when we had guests over, this one was smaller and beat up and in the kitchen)
Wealth signifier. They're flaunting the fact that they can afford a pristine white couch (and can just buy a new one if it gets stained).
white is elegant
Like swans. Or cocaine.
In my house, the couch is what we sit on. In rich people’s house, THIS couch is what you sit on, THAT one is for show, THAT other one is for show and THAT other one is for show.
They have the kids eating at a dining table so the kids wouldn't mess the couches up. They could also have staff that would keep it pristine.
What regular people consider the normal living room to hang out in is usually just used for entraining guests in rich people houses. They do not let their children eat spaghetti in their entertainment living room. They have other spaces they use was their personal living room + a kid's play room.
Some celebrities do mention this or talk about their living rooms in ways you can tell it is not their actual hang out space type lying room (like Kendall Jenner's AD video).
In the 70s, nearly every 2800 ft.² suburban rancher Brady Bunch home had a formal living and dining room that was solely for entertaining guests and to display the “nice stuff”. That was absolutely NOT where the family hung out and ate. And kids knew better than to go in there outside of those special occasions. The floor may as well have been hot lava as far as kids were concerned. Mom would lose her shit.
Yeah most of my older relatives still have a formal living room for guests, and none of them are rich. When I was a kid, I knew it was their 'nice' area and would never think to go eat in there.
Im not rich but have a nice white couch we bought before kids.
It is a slip cover couch so the cover comes off and goes in the washing machine. It cleans up shockingly well, my daughter has spilled food, drink and peed on it and it all came out. We assumed we would replace the slip cover with a darker color by now but with as well as it's done we will probably go white again once she is a little less brutal on it.
Performance fabrics!
We have white sofas and tots, my sofas are machine washable and performance fabrics. I spend some money on these sofas knowing they will last past toddlerhood.
My coffee table, that I’m waiting to replace. My kids ruined that thing and I’ll put in money when they stop spilling and using markers. Got my eye on a $2000 coffee table that I’m not willing to risk.
I don’t have a white couch, but my kids aren’t allowed to eat/drink on the couch regardless. The dining room is right next to the living room.
An illuminating article about a home decorator resolved the issue.
She had young kids and a sofa with white, custom fitted, cotton-linen type heavy slipcover that comes with the sofa - the kind that Pottery Barn and similar companies sells with choice of covers.
The white color surprised the interviewer but the decorator said that white is the easiest cleanup with kids. You can throw it it the washing machine or spot clean it with bleach and water. It doesn't fade and the colors won't run.
My guess is that she also had a snack-at-table- only rule, served only white wine to guests and made pasta with white sauce. 😆
After that, I switched to all white towels, linens, bed covers, dish towels and discovered she is right. Bleach makes it all look new again. No faded towels or bed covers. My sofa is leather, and I didn't replace it.
I used to deliver furniture and I was surprised to learn that most wealthy people have two living rooms. One is filled with very nice furniture and that room is never used. You see it when you walk in the front door, but it's for show.
There is another living, or family room, that has furniture more suited for daily use.
When you're that rich you can have a playroom for the kids.
The pristine white couch is for the room that only adults are allowed into.
I have 3 young kids (3/6/7), a dog, two cats, and a white couch.
We only eat food at the dinner table, kitchen, or outside.
Also our couch is upholstered in a water repellent fabric that is used often for outdoor furniture. It’s called Sunbrella
My kids are not perfect but they know better than to throw food and wipe their faces/hands on furniture by now. Also, they know that if they make a mess they’re going to be helping to clean it up. Even the 3 year old who is a tornado but we stay reminding good manners and habits. It’s a tight rope walk of keeping them mindful but letting them be kids while not being really strict and overbearing.
Messes happen but that’s why we have the Sunbrella and a Bissell 3624.
We probably sound very strict and anal but our kids are wild and happy. They love to spend most of their time outside and at the beach, making mud pies and sand castles and collecting snails, old wasp nests, cool rocks, and whatever beach treasure they find.
The kids are usually better behaved than the poor ones
Because those couches are for show. They probably have whole rooms that no one but them is allowed in and even then just to show off for Instagram. Also, most of the people who do that are newly rich. Old Money usually buy antique furniture which are upholstered to protect them and can get them re-upholstered if they get dirty or stained.
I think most rich peoples living room is just a decoration, and i dont think the kids or they themselves go and chill in the living room they just have many other rooms in the house they chill out
I think the cloud couch is pretty popular with the wealthy and if I am not mistaken the covers come off to be cleaned. However, I think it is more they don't allow their kids to be wild and eat spaghetti on the couch etc. I am far from rich and I never let my kids eat on the furniture. They did one time and of course spilled it and they ended up having to clean it all up and fixed that issue and they never did it again.
Larger homes of the wealthy and people who can afford it have plenty of eating areas and adult areas so I don't think it is a big issue as they just say, no eating on the furniture. Maybe the nanny tells them no lol
I just assumed its staged. Like you always see lemons in bowl in the kitchen.
We have friends who are doctors. They have multiple living rooms (in their mansion) their grand living room in the main entrance is just for show when they have over guests. They have white couches in it. Nobody sits on them unless they’re new guests.
Rich people can afford to buy the sofa with commercial grade/stain resistant fabric.
we have a not WHITE couch but super light grey one. it's a lovesac brand and I can take all of the fabric off to wash it.
that said, rich people hire interior designers to pick out their furniture. "living" in the designed house isn't a priority. we had an interior designer pick out this chair and my wife loved it. I pointed out it would get ruined quickly but I was over ruled.
fast forward 2 years and we have to replace the chair.... but the couch is holding up well, and we don't let the kids eat / drink in the living room. they eat in the kitchen or dining room.
I bought a light grey colored couch. Huge mistake and a big learning opportunity. No matter what I do, I can't keep it looking clean. I ended up buying a cheap cover for it that I can just take off and throw in the wash. Helps with pet hair.
Scotchgard. Big saver of white couches.
The color is for the aesthetics. They can do it even with kids because their kids live with their nanny’s in a separate wing of the house and even if the couch does get damaged they can just buy a new one .
Well, I imagine the kids dont eat on the white couch and stay in the kitchen or table with food and drinks. Thats a pratty standard rule for a lot of homes rich and poor. They have cleaning people who do everything for them. If something spills, they probably have expensive machinery that can clean it, or they just buy a new one every year or some dumb shit.
Most well-educated people dont eat on the couch…and kids know not to dirty couches with food/feet/markers
I would rather know there was a stain or dirt than have a black couch and not know. Gross. You can purchase fabrics already stain guarded and durable. Also you can put a blanket down to protect a certain area on the couch/sectional if you have a toddler.
White couch with a slip cover. Take the cover off and bleach or oxyclean. It’s bright white again.
Also, what the hell are you doing on your couch that causes it to get so dirty? Eat at the table or standing over the sink like a sophisticated individual.
My kids never ate on the white couch. That is what the dining room and kitchen are for.
Never had a problem.
Why would a child eat spaghetti on a couch?
For us the white couch was by far the cheapest option. I knew the kids would destroy it so we figured get the cheapest couch we could find and then replace it when the youngest is 5, 6,7? So far ironically the only person who has seriously stained it has been myself spilling coffee on it twice…..
Going to say they do not let the kids eat spaghetti on the couch lol.
Also what you see on instagram is what they want you to see. My friend was creating social media videos in her apartment kitchen for a while. The view that the camera could see was perfect and clean... the rest of the apartment not so much. (not that it was dirty or anything, but it just looks like people lived there...)
Leather couches… it’s what my family does. Any spill just wipes off. Even my dogs spot has no stain and he lays there everyday and scratch before laying down.
I have a couch with white slipcover I can wash with bleach. Feels cleaner than non-slipcovered couches
Fabric that's treated with Crypton or Alta will hold up for a very long time, even with rambunctious kids and their juice boxes. It's really no different than all the hotels you see with white furniture- stain treatment is the key. Outdoor, bleach-cleanable fabrics are also ideal for indoor furniture.
I have zero kids and would never buy a white couch because I don't trust myself.
Because they can just get it cleaned or throw it away. or they are evil and don’t let the kids touch it and make a big deal out of keeping it clean.
I feel like they never actually LIVE in the living room. Even when you watched MTV cribs most of them said they didn’t use the living room they always boasted that they spent more time in other rooms like there rec room, den, garage, outside/in the pool or outdoor/semi outdoor space like a gazebo. Gym/basketball court, home studio or man cave or maybe a home office space depending on what there career is. Also in big houses they have dedicated dining areas some specific for different times of the day like when you go to museums that are built in old historic mansions there are dining areas like the one museum I go to was a mansion and they have a smaller dining room just for breakfast that has stained glass windows that overlooks the gardens and sees the morning light.
Cuz they aint cleaning it
I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination, and our couch isn’t white, but it is a very light tan color. We have 2 teens and 2 dogs. I liked the material and the color, plus the whole cover comes off and I can wash it. We don’t eat in our living room, but drinks have gotten spilled on it. I just spot clean or toss it in the wash. It’s also had muddy paw print on it multiple times.
We had a formal living room and a family room. Family room was dark brown couches, and a dark green floor. The formal living room was white carpet and off white couches. It was for holidays/family gatherings only.
As we got older and less filthy (kids are filthy- accept it), we swapped the family room for a formal dining room for holidays or family visits and the formal living room became our every day living/family room. This was ideal because as the family grew we needed more room for seating (which the white room had) and when family visited for holidays the eat in 8-seat table in the eat in kitchen and 4-seater island wasn’t enough so the added 8-seat table in the dining room was def needed.
Note: we weren’t rich. My parents were solidly middle class but we lived in a very rural area where land and housing was cheap AF in 1990. My mom was also a clean freak. That house doesn’t look 35 years old at all. Sure the kitchen/bathrooms a little dated but it was kept in impeccable shape.
Not rich and no white couch but when I was a kid mom had rules for us kids and one of them was no food, drink. Playdoh, markers or paint in the living room.
I grew up in a family upholstery shop. Those rich folks with white couches kept us in business. They're great!
Because it’s no problem to by a new one if it gets dirty
I'm not rich, but my white couch had washable slip covers so it's super easy to keep clean.
my boyfriend’s mother has a giant white couch, the the first thing you see as you walk into her house…NOBODY is allowed to sit on it, its a decorative couch. she lives with her husband and two teenage boys and often hosts dinner, but NOBODY is allowed on that couch.
Typically the kids would not be allowed in that room, except maybe for special occasions. My family pretty much only uses the living room on Christmas.
My wife and her mother bought BRIGHT WHITE couch covers a few years ago. We had a dog at the time, and we live out in the country with a dirt/gravel driveway. Getting dirt and dead grass tracked into the house was inevitable.
I don’t think they thought that decision through. I still don’t understand either.
You teach your kids not to plop. Ever watch Curb Your Enthusiasm?
Light colors can also be washed at really high temps without losing color. Removable covers and a light color option is perfect for kids imo.
camouflage.
We are just too poor to understand :-(
If you're rich, do you really care if your furniture gets ruined? Let your servants replace it or clean it before you even notice it's f-ed up.
The vast, vast majority of people you'd call rich do not have servants, nor would they ever treat a nice couch like a consumable. Especially because nice couches often have a long ass lead time (mine was 5 months).
They just take care of them and don't let a little kid eat fucking spaghetti on their nice white couch. And if a stain does happen they clean it right away.
Instagram photo shoots and how they actually live are not the same thing. They sneeze out the few thousand dollars it takes to stage that stuff.
If they are rich they probably pay someone to clean up after the kids
These are often not made of a cloth material, but rather leather or a synthetic leather. They are quite easy to wipe down and keep clean. In my experience, they can be even easier in some regards because you can use hasher agents on them that may cause colored materials to lose their coloration.
They dont use them, theyre for decoration.
If I was rich I wouldn’t care about what color our furniture is. I would have a maid that comes in weekly and have somebody clean the couches when needed. In reality we’ve picked tan to brown couches over the years because we can go longer between the heavy scrubbing. After our last purchase for living room seating I totally understand the plastic wrap grandma had on her couch.
As a child I used to love visiting my grandpa overnight in San Francisco when I he had a cozy normal house in the Lower Sunset. He wound up dating and marrying this lady who had all-white everything in her house and I suddenly hated staying over there.
Out of nowhere came all these rules about where to sit, how to sit, where I can eat or drink, what path to carry things around in the house, it was absolutely insufferable.
I basically started hating wealthy aesthetic at around 8yrs old for what it does to people and the people around them. The start of my villain origin story lol.
And let me tell you- hating rich people and their things in coastal California doesn’t make you pOpUlAr lol
The maid cleans it so who cares
My lower middle class parents had a white couch when my brother and I were little. Off-white, really, with wicker arms, because it was the 90s. They kept it clean by keeping us terrified to touch it under most circumstances. We got screamed at if we went near it with food and we were only allowed to sit or sleep in it in fresh clothes, and only then under supervision.
Wow, it’s like there is a totally different reality online than there is in real life… I know you youngins have a hard time distinguishing, but pro tip: stuff online isn’t always real.
Haha, I'm not rich, but I have a white couch. It's in my bedroom, tho, so my kids only sit on it when they're cuddling with me, and even I rarely eat or drink on it. We just needed something to fill the space, and I liked the fact that it brought out the white detailing in our carpet because our room was fairly dark otherwise. The ones in our living room and play room are brown and green, respectively.
Everyone has a dream
“Throw it in the gutter, go buy another”
I have a white sofa. I am mostly worried about myself and my wine drinking so I have insurance on it 😁
Part of being rich is proving you are. "Lawns" were a flex by aristocrats to prove they had so much, they didn't even plant shit in their property and still take care of it.
A stain free white couch is proof you're "doing it right", even if it's now more decoration than furniture.
We had 3 living rooms growing up, the one no one ever sat it with white and black furniture, the formal one for visitors and then our kids one upstairs where we could make a mess. It’s really a huge waste but it happens.
If they are leather you can clean them without a problem
My parents didn't have a white couch, but they had a room by the front door that I joke was only for appearance. They had a nice-looking silver couch that wasn't that comfortable to sit on. Like, not actively uncomfortably, but just not comfortable like the other couches. We literally just used it for photo opps like for the Christmas card.
Funnily enough, even though the dog wasn't allowed on that couch, she'd always go on that one but not the other couches she wasn't allowed to go on. We'd see her jump off it when we pulled up to the house and my older sister would see her on it when she slept late and came down in the afternoons when everyone was out.
The idea of a formal 'sitting room' with nice furniture that never gets used by little kids used to be a lot more common....
My guess is its not that hard to tell the full time live-in nanny to not let your kids on the couch with food
The kids have their own suite and are not allowed in mom and dad's space. Mom and dad rarely use the spaces themselves and confine themselves to a few rooms.
I’ve definitely seen the boring beige homes. It seems like alotttttt of influencers are making their homes into this boring drab nothing with no colour, mom’s renting out bounce houses that are white with clear balls. What happened to colour and fun and actually living in a house and not a museum. It’s a weird aesthetic to be into honestly, it’s just so boring
I have a white sofa and we don’t eat on it. My house is laid out with different rooms and the furniture is different depending on how we use it. If you have one room for gathering or hanging out then a white sofa is not a good choice, these homes you mention probably have rooms they never use and off limits to kids and food.
they buy the one they really want but the husband said no to when the kids ruin it beyond repair. rich is all about showing off. stuff like that is about saying I can and will. not I need or it's useful
My maternal grandparents were "new money", from no money. Their sitting room and formal dining room had white carpet, and white furniture covered in clear plastic. You couldn't walk on the lawn either lol.
As someone who once worked in a furniture store in a very wealthy area I’d say they likely just replace it if it gets dirty. Every week was the same super rich house wife’s with nothing better to do than refurnishing their entire homes on a near weekly basis I’m talking like 15-20k in furniture and decor every single week.
We have a white sofa in our family room. We also have three boys, 18 months to 5 years old. We bought the sofa before we had the children. (RIP Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams). After showing signs of use, I had a slipcover made from Sunbrella fabric that you typically see on year-round outdoor furniture cushions. It’s literally possible to wipe a stain off the fabric with a damp cloth.
This is never something I would have done, or even thought of, before kids. You just kind of pick up these tricks along the way, mostly by doing it the wrong way first.
1) They're rich, so they've got many rooms. I assume their kids have dedicated play rooms and eating rooms, probably multiple dedicated rooms for their children. In fact, I have friends (not super rich but have nice living room furniture) who only use their living room for entertaining guests and the rest of the time no one ever goes into it (and often times their nice furniture is draped for protection). The family have another sitting room for when hanging out when there's no guests.
2) Again, in you example these people are rich, so why won't they just buy a new couch every time it gets stained? They're not going to show a dirty stained couch on a TV visit to their house. I bet you some of them probably hire interior staging companies to make over the rooms before showing on TV, and it's not even their regular everyday furniture.
3) Adding to the point about being billionaire rich, I have friend of a friend who is that rich. He has a toddler. He built a "mini" replica of his mansion in his backyard for his toddler as a "play house" except it's bigger than my actual house. And there's another "mini-mini" replica of the mansion in the backyard of his toddler's "playhouse" for their pet dog as a "doghouse". The doghouse is big enough for humans to live in it. So ya, the kids got lot of space to make a mess away from the nice living room.
I don't know about rich people, but every working or middle class Cuban household in Miami had a living room "museum" with couches and furniture that were strictly reserved for company. The "museum" was off limits to kids, teenagers or anyone else under pain of death. Family time was crammed into much smaller family rooms where the family TV was located.
“I knew that Eddie could afford another one.”
There aren't many stains you can't get out if you have enough money to spend on it.
Kids probably don’t go in the living room. They likely stay in a family room or playroom.
They have a cleaning service that will clean the couch.
They aren’t keeping their couch until it falls apart like the rest of us. They’ll replace it when they get tired of it and the trends change.
Their kids don’t eat spaghetti on the couch, and the nanny makes sure they’re clean before being excused from the table.
Tbh I don’t question anything rich people do, they’re typically delusional. What gets me is the people who are broke af buying a white couch. Like at least rich people can afford professional cleanings or a replacement.
To be fair I know poor people who have kids and white couches too. Most of them look like shit, but maybe they keep covers on them most of the time or something.
I grew up working class/ middle class in the 90s and my parents had white living room couches. My brothers and I just knew not to play or eat on them. We could eat in the kitchen, dining table, etc. We played in our rooms or in the finished basement that had older furniture that was already torn, stained, etc.
Now that I have kids, I like their approach. Keeping one space “kid free” gives the adults a place to enjoy. My upstairs living room has the nice couches and chairs. It’s also got a bar and expensive decor we’ve collected over the years. My basement living area has a big couch with removable, washable covers and is covered in my kids toys.
Rich kids tend to be better behaved and have more respect.
Probably for aesthetics.
I am wondering what the adverb in the thread title is supposed to convey.
Lots of good answers in this thread but it’s worth mentioning that some of these “home tours” are fake with the decoration done specifically for the shoot.
I work with people who style these shoots and the amounts spent to play pretend for one day is wild.
Not rich and no kids but I bought a ridiculous white couch.
I got a couple big white blankets and threw them over the whole couch for protection (and easy to wash/keep clean). I take them off for company.
Rich people can also pay people to clean their white couches.
It a way to signal membership in the illuminati.
Rich people stuff isn't defined by the ability to buy it, but the ability to maintain it.
If had the money for white sofas, for regular cleaning and or replacing them as and when. They’re so much nicer white lol. Then yes I’d have them with kids lol
I don’t have kids and I just got an expensive white Italian leather couch from my job for $25. I just upgraded to Tony Montana level in my apt.
Performance fabric also has just gotten a lot better over the years. Now it’s so much easier to wipe/scrub away stains than it was on the fabric cloths of our youth.
But also, agreeing that richer people have bigger houses with dedicated spaces for kids
While there are all kinds of hoops we could jump through to justify having white couches, it seems really impractical to me for anyone if you want to actually use the couch a lot. If it’s just a show couch and everyone is well trained to generally avoid it, I think that’s wasteful and stupid personally 🤣 but to each their own.
"My lifestyle does not allow white couches."
This is a thing I recently told a furniture salesman. We are living through a renovation and my husband loves to work on our cars and I love to garden. We are naturally dirt people. It doesn't matter how often we shower, things are getting tracked in. I'm constantly wiping down his arm chair (yellow leather) and sofa (orange leather). I have a little station by the back door for my hat, gloves and garden shoes and I'm still finding dirt in all corners of the house (even with our roomba).
I think my kids are probably the cleanest things in the house and I jokingly nicknamed my youngest Pigpen after the Peanuts character.
The house is always picked up and we lean towards minimalism but living in the desert (so much sand blown in) and having hobbies where we are literally getting getting our hands dirty, white couches cannot exist.
There are some influencers who rent space for their videos. The kids are at home with the babysitter.
I have off white sofas in my living room, which truly is just for entertaining . I did have them sprayed for stain resistance. Not sure how well that would work in the event of a red wine stain! We actually have a second seating area on the other side of the room, and I noticed that whenever my guests are drinking red wine or eating hors d'oeuvres, they tend to move over there! They're afraid to ruin my beautiful designer sofa.
However, I have a white leather sofa in my beach house living room it is so easy to clean, you can wipe it down. Then I have white sofas in my den that we abuse! But those are slip covers, and they are removable and bleachable. That's really my point, that some of the sofas are easier to clean than you think.
Do you eat spaghetti in your living room?
We had a white couch with little kids and it was cleaner and easier than you would think! Washable covers and it could be bleached. We put a white blanket down on the seating area that got washed weekly.
I've always had white couches and walls. It's usually my guests who ask that same question that get them dirty. One sat on my couch with a glittered dress, another leaned her greasy head one wall and moved it side to side. Instead of holding the handrail going downstairs, they hold the wall. My children know better. I'm beginning to call them out on it. I just don't get it
I’ve been in love with white slipcovered furniture since I had my first apt. Most days these pieces have white towels on the seats so our covers stay lovely. Towels can be washed over and over and taken off for company. Kids juice, dogs muddy paws and daily dirt is easily washed away when needed without sacrificing the style I love.
Probably because no one really goes into half the rooms, including the fancy LR with the white couch.
Because they can still be cleaned like Any other couch and the kids don’t eat everything on them?
Why do people have kids when they clearly have white couches?
My rich friend growing up had a 2nd living room that we weren't allowed in
I had lots of light furniture when my kids were little because my cousin who was moving away gave it to me. It included living room and dining room furniture. And my kids ate food in just one of those places. Especially food that comes in a bowl and requires utensils…,like, oh…. Spaghetti.
There were no juice boxes back then. But it didn’t matter, they learned how to drink from sippy cups at the dining room table. There’s meal time (table) snack time (table) play time (toy area in living room) family time (living room unless they want food during family then dining room).
Sometimes we would have “floor picnic” if watching a movie. Spread a big towel on the floor, put finger-food snacks on it, or a bowl of popcorn, and a couple damp paper towels.
Im not sure how rich people do it but I bet the family room couch isn’t white like the living room couch. And yes, they can afford to replace ruined furniture so white furniture is a bit of a status symbol.
Bigger homes allow for more separation of spaces and activities. They never eat in the living room, because there’s a dining room as well as an eat-in kitchen.
There’s a playroom and large kid bedrooms, with plenty of storage, so art supplies stay out of the adult spaces. There’s a nanny and a housecleaner to enforce those rules and catch any stray markers and fruit pouches that escape containment.
Edited to add: you don’t have to be rich to enforce a “no food in the living room” type of rule. We have a dog with a sensitive tummy, so food has always been an “only in the kitchen” thing to prevent him from getting into abandoned kid snacks. We also only buy washable markers and crayons, and the kids only use them in the playroom or the kitchen. Our living room is pretty stain-free.
My aunt and uncle (but really my aunt) had a pure white living room, including the carpet. No one was allowed in that room unless they were having a party. I have no idea what their cleaning bills must have been.
So yeah, an entire, fully furnished, large room completely unused 99% of the time.
My great grandmother kept her "living room" very fancy, very pristine, and covered in plastic unless more than one adult guest was coming to visit. Otherwise she just hung out in what would have been a dining room (between living room and kitchen) but she had repurposed as a den with a TV and stuff.
I always thought it was weird. A living room is for living!
My grandparents are the same way! The den in the space between the kitchen/dining and the fancy livingroom
My grandparents were like this as well! Their “front room” was the “fancy living room” and then the kitchen/dining area was open concept with the den, or to them it was their living room. Even when the house was jammed full on Christmas Day, we all still avoided the “front room” because it just felt like you weren’t allowed to touch anything there lol
Old people in Ireland are exactly the same, but they call it 'the good room' which I love
My grandparents in Boston called it a "parlor"
I love that.
I've heard them differentiated as a "Sitting Room" where the grown ups and fancy guests can sit, and a "Living Room" where life happens.
This is so bizarre! What’s the point?
Class aspirations. It was done by the working class and lower middle class people who could afford it - just like the husband would be wearing a starched collar and a shiny hat on a Sunday, in imitation of middle and upper classes, the wife would entertain special guests in a special room that looked like a bourgeois parlor, with carpets, pictures on the walls, a piano etc.
Perhaps I should rephrase it. It wasn’t like these people were consciously trying to pretend they belonged to a higher class than what they really were, that would be ridiculous. Who are you going to deceive - your own family and neighbors? Your coworkers? Things belonging to the upper classes were perceived as the good, beautiful, quality things, which of course makes every sense in the world - they sure can afford the better stuff, so why wouldn’t they? And just as when you have guests, you don’t want to give them some slop to eat and drink, but something nice, you also want to entertain them in a room that looks as nice as possible - which, in the time and place, meant looking like a rich family’s room.
Same reason why Americans cut grass so short. We want to cosplay as wealthy people.
I think it is probably a holdover from the days when you had a formal parlor where you hosted social callers. Parlors were supposed to show how refined, rich and tasteful you were and so they were kept spotless. When it was just family you would gather in a more casual room.
This makes perfect sense and I'm not sure why I never realized that until now. I like looking at house plans and Zillow listings and one of my pet peeves are plans with the living room right in the front, then a large family room off the kitchen in the back. It's super common and seen in tons of houses, yet everyone I know with this layout (my childhood home included) was completely wasted space. You can't use it as a kid's room because it's the first thing guests see, but you don't want to use it as the living room because the family room is nicer and more tucked away.
It's a relic of the old reception hall. Guests come in and have a place to stand and judge your house and how nice and clean it is, but it's not actually meant to be used for anything.
Such a waste of square footage. Never liked it and hope it goes out of style completely. Unfortunately, it's still very common when I look at new-build plans, so apparently people somewhere like it?
I’m with you, even as a kid having ANY room inside your house that you barely ever used ever by design seemed completely mysterious.
My house is designed like that, and I like my layout. My family room is comfortable, sure, but I feel like it's kind of centered around the TV, which is great when I'm watching TV, not so great other times. I use the front living room a lot for reading, and of course whenever I have guests over (which is common, not in a "formal entertaining" sense but like I live within walking distance of the main entertainment district in my city so my friends and I will often meet at my house if we're going to a show or a nice restaurant or whatever).
It's a luxury to be able to have two separate sitting rooms, sure, but I'd say I honestly do use them pretty evenly. The front living room is also easier to convert into a big dining room using folding tables if I want to host a holiday party or things like that, since I don't have a separate dining room and mostly eat at a small table in my kitchen or out on my patio.
If someone regularly hosts dinner parties or social gatherings, then that kind of a room is quite nice! My husband and I have no kids, and we love hosting people, so we get a lot of use out of that room in our old house.
We just moved to a new, smaller place and I miss my old home that was perfect for throwing adult parties 😭😭😭
Having a living room and a dining room that were “too good” for daily use was very much a mid twentieth century middle class flex in the United States.
You could display furniture, china, crystal, carpets, etcetera that were “too good” for everyday use because you couldn’t afford to replace them. Also a good place to display family heirlooms if you had them.
It said, “We survived the Great Depression and World War II and we’re not just scraping by anymore.”
That said, having a nice “parlor” only for visitors and special occasions goes back even further than that, but far fewer people could even aspire to that level of conspicuous consumption before the mid twentieth century.
When I was a kid we had a living room and a den, we used both but the den was definitely used more than the living room as it had a much bigger TV. The living room we had a very large wooden cabinet designed for our stereo and it had only the tiniest place for a TV which until flat screens came out was impossible to find one in the right dimensions other than a tiny one that people used to put in like a kitchen. We paid like close to $400 or $500 for a Panasonic that we measured to fit in that space in 2001. I think it was like the predecessor to the flat screen HD TVs we have today but it still had the big back. We preferred the den just because it had a larger TV. And instead of a couch the den had a twin bed and if we wanted to sit on it like a couch we just put pillows against the wall and sat on it like a couch. The home computer was also in the den and eventually we had a recliner in there because we sat in there more.
My mother had friends whose parents didn't allow their kids to ever go into the living room. These were wealthier families who could afford a formal living room that was rarely used. My grandmother's sofa was so horribly uncomfortable that no one would want to sit on it anyway. I could enter the room though.
Is a room really fancy if it's covered in plastic? I had a friend who had a house like that and it's a pretty ugly look even if the furniture is nice
My grandma was the same! It was a sectioned off room between the entryway and the kitchen, you had to go down some steps to go into the kitchen and living room. I once got told off for playing with the bowls of decorative marbles she had in the fancy living room!
This was actually super common with houses built in like the 60s to 80s, maybe even earlier? Having a den and a living room and one of the two was almost exclusively for hosting people. As housing has gotten less affordable and lifestyles have changed, so has this. Modern houses tend to prioritize open concept livingroom/kitchen combos that lead out to a patio or something for one large family and entertainment space and not necessarily having a separate one (unless you’re like mega rich).
My bff's family had the same. We called it the shrine.
My aunt (& uncle..but just as you mostly aunt) had the “white living room” and the regular living room..at the holidays the white room also had a (fake) white Christmas tree with only white, silver & gold ornaments and white lights. The regular living room had a normal “gaudy” tree, colored lights, mismatched ornaments of life events, random balls, tchotchke type ornaments. They didn’t even have a huge house. Literally their first house was a bi level maybe 1500 sq ft? The second was probably smaller, closer to 1200 or even less. So it was SERIOUS WASTED SPACE.
I grew up upper middle class with a pretty big house, we had a more formal living room and a family room. The family room was the main place send hang out downstairs next to the kitchen with the TV and couches we used all the time, the living room had the nice furniture like a white couch and we pretty much only used it for opening gifts on Christmas and for when my parents would have parties. We would NEVER be allowed to have food in the living room.
My mom's formal living room turned into the family reading room when we were kids. Good lighting, cozy couches and chairs, plush rug and quiet despite us being a big family.
Now, it belongs to the cats until Christmas haha. Their big cat tree and toys live in there. It's so funny because it's a very formal room with victorian style decor and cat trees, tunnels and toys everywhere. The formal dining room also belongs to the cats.
I also grew up with a family room and a living room, but my mom went with a more forgiving gold color for the formal living room. Also, I was allowed to play in there (not with friends), but as long as what I had was like cars or little people I could. Usually when I played in there, I was under the piano.
Yep, I used to babysit for a rich family that had a super fancy living room with white carpet and couches, as well as a fancy music room with a baby grand piano. No one ever went into those rooms, so they stayed super clean and nice. The family room at the back of the house served as a TV room and play room, and it was plenty messy. As were the kids’ rooms upstairs.
Rich kids learn how to care for nice things like furniture, glassware, knives, delicates in laundry, etc as they grow and start doing chores. Lots of things in rich people homes are more fragile or require more care than the couch that you pick up at Savers or Ikea.
If you are a child who is drinking a juicebox and likely to spill it, you do NOT do it on the white couch, or the white carpet, or near the expensive art. As others have said, the kids have whole other areas like play rooms to cause their havoc.
I’ve noticed this as well, even in my own family.
I have cousins who grew up low income and cousins who grew up wealthier.
Even if they had the same items, for example, the same laptop for school, the lower income laptops seem to be treated badly. Keys broken, screen scratched, dirty with things spilled on it. While the weather laptops still looked brand new.
I know this because I’m the “computer guy” in the family and I’ve had to work on everyone’s computers at some point.
It’s obviously an issue with how they were raised and how they are taught to take care of things at home.
Its very much a social class thing. Look at cars, ever see a 1-2 year old car that already looks completely trashed? Yeah, look at the owner. They probably don't take care of themselves or anything else either.
Ha I work with rich kids and have found the complete opposite. Pretty sure most of them don't do chores (that's what the help is for) and they don't respect expensive equipment because they've learnt it can be easily replaced.
I think it really depends on the level of wealth. There are plenty of families sitting around 250k household income that have nice things. They have cleaners and help with the yard and pool, but the kids and parents still have to keep up the home a bit. These are the types of kids that I was referencing in my post. Sure, there is a point of wealth where dad owns 40 car dealerships or is the CEO of a huge company and they just live in an alternate reality of affluenza.
I grew up upper middle class but this is definitely the answer. I was raised to be careful with everything I touch, and I never really broke things as a kid. The only thing I ever remember breaking was a glass when I was like 10, because I had a broken arm and I was bad at gripping stuff with my arm in a cast. I was horrified, much more so than my parents actually, they didn’t really care.
I’m sure my parents have less delicate stuff than actual wealthy people, but there’s a lot of glassware, leather furniture and art (my mom’s an artist and my dad collects art as a hobby so there was always a mix of relatively expensive art to avoid breaking). I had to learn really early to be careful who I invited over, lest they break something.
I have a teeny tiny condo with two kids and have always enforced “zones” to help cut down on mess and clutter. No shoes upstairs on the carpeted bedrooms. Food stays in the living room/dining room (except very rarely for movie night snacks). Toys stay upstairs.