How We Supersized Our IKEA EKTORP Sofa

Ever since our move in June, there's been a constant reshuffling of furniture from room to room as we figure out what works best where. No matter how well thought-out our plans were before moving into the house, we needed to live in it for several months to get a feel for how to make the space work for our family. And thanks to the beauty of neutral furniture pieces, we've been able to mix up the furniture from our old house in new ways without having to buy much. 
But one purchase we knew 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 and a few other inexpensive 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:

It was the final piece that we needed before starting to put the living room together...

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 Kris! 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 cross your fingers and hit the IKEA "As Is" section and you just might luck into an extra seat cushion and cover. I did :-)