How We Supersized Our IKEA EKTORP Sofa

Measurements come first here, because a good-looking piece in the wrong spot still fails. Thanks to the beauty of owning neutral furniture pieces, the household has 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.

You're left with a padded square that's attached to the sofa with a set of brackets that hook underneath it:

*Unhook the chaise attachment:

*Remove the center seat cushion.
*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! The household has had our EKTORP sofa for three years now and love it!

You can look at recent pics of our living room with our EKTORP sofa {here}XOXO,