Thanks to the beauty of owning neutral furniture pieces, we’ve been able to mix up the furniture from our old house in new ways without having to buy much for our new house. But one purchase we couldn’t avoid is a new living room sofa. We didn’t want to spend a lot of money and had narrowed down the possibilities to the IKEA EKTORP sofa and a few other inexpensive sofa options that I blogged about {here}. The EKTORP seemed like the best option for us but we wanted a sofa that was longer than the EKTORP’s 86″ because our living room is so long and narrow. The solution? We figured out a way to create an EKTORP sofa that’s over a foot longer than the standard EKTORP:
How can you create a supersized IKEA EKTORP sofa? Start with the EKTORP loveseat and chaise lounge:
*Remove the long chaise cushion, which has an attached skirt that covers the chaise.
Want to save this post?
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
*Pick the chaise cushion back up, fold the attached skirt under it, and place it on the seat of the sofa so that it serves as both the center and a side seat cushion. It’s a perfect fit 🙂
OK, I know what you’re saying. That looks weird! One short seat cushion and one long one?! All it takes is a strategically placed throw and no one will ever be the wiser:
Or you can hit the IKEA “As Is” section and you just might luck into an extra seat cushion and cover. I did 🙂
Update! We’ve had our EKTORP sofa for three years now and love it!
Tom says
What an inspired modification. I have a different need but this gives me insight how to solve it. I have two 3-seat and a 2-seat (Love Seat for you guys in North America). Struggling to find replacement covers in preferred patterns (e.g. Rutna) I bought a cover set for a sofa with chaise. I haven’t decided yet wether to modify it for the 2-seat or for a 3-seat sofa, but if for the latter then with some deciduous folding of cushion covers, a central pleat in the frame cover and using this idea with the chaise end cover I can achieve it.
Thanks
Andrea says
Oh my!! Thanks so much! It’s so easy. I was just trying to figure out how I could get rid of the chaise but I didn’t have another cushion. Brilliant. Thanks again!
Dana Studer says
We just did this! We were considering getting rid of our white 3 cushion Ektorp with chaise and buying a white Ektorp sofa which would fit our room better. Girl, you saved us a lot of work. Thank you!
Susan says
You just solved my problem with this sofa! I don’t like the chaise feature and was searching a replacement cushion.
KLH says
I am not seeing how the couch got longer. It’s still the same frame and three back cushions. What am I missing?
KLH
Tom says
No it’s not the same frame. The sofa with chaise is considerably longer than the 3-seat sofa. That was the whole basis for the modification.
Zoe says
Such a smart idea! I’ve been looking for solutions to changing our ikea sofa with chaise into a simple 3-seat due to our new living room layout, and thank god I read your post! Now I realize we can do so by simply repositioning the chaise cushion! No extra purchase needed!
Becca says
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! My SO and I ended up with the chaise-version of the EKTORP and realized today while cleaning we preferred it sans-chaise, which led me on the search to figure out this exact problem! YAY! THANK YOU!! And thank you for the pillow inspiration, too!
M Rhodes says
Nice IKEA-hack! I want to share a similar solution. Originally the chaise sofa slip cover came with a separate base cover for the added chaise. My husband and I bought the chaise sofa and loveseat together. We moved the long chasie cushion to the loveseat and it’s 2 cushions to the couch and a newly created ottoman. (We just put the chasise attachment brackets on backwards to make back feet for the ottoman). There is one wrong side on the ottoman, but it just faced the wall. After we updated the set with the new skirt attached slip coves, the ottoman doesn’t match the other pieces, but is still useful in another room. We are still using all the pieces successfully!
Kris Jarrett says
That’s so smart!!!
Lori says
Hello! Love the look!! Currently ordering this sofa with lounge and cane across your page researching. Where did you find your side chairs? So adorable!
Kris Jarrett says
Thanks! Those swivel chairs were a splurge but I love them – they’re made by Lee Industries – there is a direct link to them in the source list at the end of my room tour post here: https://www.drivenbydecor.com/house-tour-living-room/