Ikea Slipcovering a Non-Ikea Sofa

As college students who moved every 3 months for 5 years, it’s been hard for us to rationalize having items that didn’t fit in our car for [practical] reasons. One of our good friends even decided to give up on belongings all together and start an adventure living in a 1988 Lindy motor home (check him out here his story is awesome).

So one of our first projects in our first home were these jungle floral couches in our sun room. [Donated to our empty house from one of our amazing family members] We love hanging out in here, the room gets great natural light, a nice breeze and at night it has this dim mood lighting relaxing feel to it. We also loved these sofa’s, as in the evening Greg and I each would lay on a couch and tell one another about our day. So while they had great function they didn’t quite match our style ideas for the house (even though as a friend pointed out they match the original wall color in the room YUCK).

Our lovely solid pieces of furniture

So I set-off on a mission on how to re purpose these loveseats on a low low budget. I looked at slip covers from various stores, but they were all too big, were made for big round arms, or were hundreds of dollars a piece [boo]. But I stumbled upon the Karlstad loveseat from Ikea, and it dawned on me that my jungle floral couches are an almost match. Ikea has slipcovers for $39 – $200+. While I loved the $200 ones my budget just didn’t stretch that far for two slipcovers. So for $39 we invested in the white covers, and $39 well that was the cheapest cover I’ve found.

Karlstad Love Seat Cover in White from Ikea – $39.00

::screech:: Hold the Horses! A WHITE Sofa’s? Really?

I know, I know, White sofa in a sunroom and with a black-haired dog YIKES! So I did my research and found multiple blogs [here and here and here] of mom’s with kids, and after 2+ years still love their white sofas. I even debated dying them like The Handmade House. However “they” say to wash every week, and with an occasional bleaching as needed, they hold up beyond anyone’s initial expectations. With that we were sold!

At first glance when the slipcovers arrived it looked like a complete failure. It looked like a failed project and these were going to end up on Ebay. The cushion covers are too big, and the arms are slightly odd shaped comparatively. But Greg insisted I keep trying, and with a little bit of imagination I started in.

First, it required removal of the sofa skirt. Using my big strong arm muscle power, a pair of pliers, and my lovely Fiskars utility scissors, the skirt border came apart with removal with what felt like 100,000 staples.
And Ta da! Look at the beauty of a sofa that was unvailed just by removing the sofa skirt!

The next step involved a little bit of pushing and pulling with the Ikea slipcover. Our jungle sofa isn’t an exact dimensional match, but is so close… Therefore a seem ripper came in handy to remove the seems along the edges of the cover that typically fit the corners of the sofa.

Then came the fun part, there was a lot of tucking, pulling and sticking of of velcro hook tape and waiting 24 hours. So far I’ve only velcro attached the front of the sofa’s everything else is hanging freely temporarily. I would like to say at some point I will seem up a good fit, but as life gets in the way I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it. The cushions on our jungle sofa were also a lot smaller then the Karlstad, so for now they’re just folded over and tucked underthe cushions

Overall they have that kind of wrinkled Ikea sofa look (as there is slot of tucking) but so far I’m just in love with the transformation. Ta-Da! Our Completed Sofa!

Our Finished Sofa – Me= So Proud

The room in the daylight feels more polished and finished (until we can paint & decorate).

View of Sunroom For Now

Check back soon for more updates to the sunroom!

What do you think of our new sofa covers, anyone else have a better idea for <;$80 for two?