If you're unhappy with how your furniture looks, furniture slip covers can provide an instant makeover. Old or out-of-place styles can be brought up to date with the latest fabrics, designs, and colors. Just as no suit of clothes is right for every occasion, no furniture is right for every room. But furniture slip covers give you the ability to match a piece to its surroundings.

Like any artist, before you develop your own decorating style, it helps to understand basic design principals. For instance, there aren't any right or wrong colors, but there are color combinations that are more pleasing than others. And by knowing a few simple ideas about color, line, form, weight, and texture, you'll be able to choose furniture slip covers that give you the look and feel you want.

Color
The colors you choose for your furniture slip covers have a major impact on the feel of a room. Individual colors and combinations evoke various responses due to personal experiences and social conventions. But they also affect how you visually perceive objects. If you want to make a room seem bigger, you can use light color furnishings. Or conversely, dark colors will make a room seem more intimate.

Line
Like color, the use of lines has an effect on the mood of a room. They can give it energy or make it seem tranquil. Line also can direct your attention either to, or away from, certain parts of the room. Lines contribute to both the pattern of an individual furniture slip cover and to the pattern of the room as a whole. And like the amount of color used, too few lines produces an sterile feel while an excessive mixture makes for disharmony.

Form
The form of a room applies to both the architecture and its furnishings. Changing the architecture may be out of the question, but you do have control over how well the furnishings fit. Usually, you want to have your furniture style match your home's architecture style. And a nice benefit of furniture slip covers is they let you alter the appearance of your furniture's form and style though color and pattern.

Weight
A tall thin person may weigh as much as a short stout person, but the short person will seem to be heavier. And so it is with furniture and the visual effect a piece can have in a room. So like the other design elements, the best results come when things are in balance. This means that normally you want to separate heavy-looking furniture and not have any large pieces dominate a room. And since visual weight, not actual weight is what counts, the color and style of furniture slip covers can adjust the furniture's weight to achieve a balance.

Texture
Your eye is atuned to finding patterns. And if a room is relatively featureless, its textures can be the defining element. They can reflect a certain decorating style, or mainly create an emotional response. And unlike surfaces you never feel, the texture of a furniture slip cover has the dual role of pleasing both the eye and the touch.