Tag Archives: sofa

Pillow Time

We bought our big Karlstad sectional quite awhile ago and I was always planning on brightening up the room with some throw pillows, but I never got around to it until now.

Some people are anti-throw pillows, but not only did my eyes want something to visually put my mind, and therefore body, at ease, I really wanted pillows to pile up behind me while I watch movies with Kay!

We had these two sad, sad looking (and feeling) pillows from Kay’s parents that I was using, but I wanted a mix of plumper pillows to tie in the green color from the kitchen.

Also, how sad looking is that leather couch? Now that we switched the sofas and TV around, we never sit on it and it looks so lonely and empty. It’s great for parties, but it’s a bit of a black hole otherwise.

I headed to our favorite store, IKEA, one day and decided to at least get myself started on a variety of pillows to fill the space up and make it look more homey and inviting.

For only 180-ish CHF, I bought 11 pillows and 7 pillow covers. I am really loving the new summer 2015 pear pattern from IKEA. It matches our kitchen green almost perfectly!

I just wanted to try out a mix of patterns, textures and colors. In the future, I might still make my own custom covers with more special fabric, but these’ll do for now.

See what a difference the TV area is from when we first moved in?

Even the change from where the TV was at the beginning was quite different, but I like which wall the TV is on right now.

We still plan to actually hang up some photos at some point. Kay and I have been debating for a long time about how to install a photo hanging system because we have cement walls and they are not fun to drill in. We’ll see what happens on that front!

Making room for Karl

As I mentioned, Karl was actually delivered very quickly, back in December when I ordered him. Kay started putting him together while I was gone one evening so that he would be ready in time for our Christmas party.

Of course I wanted to put the long end of the couch opposite from how Kay built it and after he finished it, he agreed… so he switched and and here is our setup since December. Don’t mind the balcony furniture piled up for the winter outside!

Sure, we could have matched more the size of the leather couch in relation to Karl’s long side, but we set it up like this because Karl seems to encroach on the TV less this way.

It is not a perfect seating setup, but it does provide a lot of seating room and some space for snacks and drinks to share.

I love the cozy nook in the corner. It is my favourite place to curl up with our two old pillows and my mothers comfy afghan.

When I have more time and money, I play on getting a ton of pillows for Karl and making funky pillow covers in bright colors like green, purple, yellow or teal to tie into the color scheme. We’re also thinking about a rug for the sofa area at some point.

Our space lamp arches over into the area and we’ve settled it above the table since Kay stood up into the lamp and broke the new philips hue bulb. (So expensive!) We have not replaced the bulb yet, so none of the LEDs diffuse anymore and it makes for odd color bands cast around the area.

Above you can see at this angle how if we put the long end of the sofa on the wall next to the TV it would be coming just a tad too close. I also thought it made more sense to have the wider part of Karl facing the TV where you would be viewing a movie.

So that’s our lounge area these days. It definitely sort of separates the lounge area from the dining area. I’ll have to see how it works in practice entertaining. It’s a whole lot of sofa!

How much seating have you got in your living room?

Karl arrives

Our Karlstad is here! Hoorah for IKEA delivering things at 7:30 in the morning, leaving me enough time to make it to work at the usual time!

Kay was here the morning it came, but then he left for a short work trip so I had the boxes and the flat all to myself. And with Thanksgiving last week, I didn’t really have any plans for putting Karl together immediately.

Karlstad Love

Ever since I came across John and Sherry’s gianormous sectional on YHL, I dreamt of filling our new living room with something similar. Like, almost exaaactly the same, with colourful pillows included.

(Picture via YHL)

I obsessed a bit about what sofa John and Sherry had bought. The shape and legs looked strangely similar to the leather one Kay bought in 2008 when I moved to Switzerland.

There was a big “duh” moment when I peeked under our sofa and read the tag to confirm that Kay’s sofa is actually also a Karlstad sofa!

I knew that Kay’s sofa originally cost around 1500CHF, so I wasn’t really interested in finding out how much the huge sectional version would cost, but Kay liked the idea of continuing with the leather because it lasts a long time and it is easy to take care of.

Unfortunately, IKEA discontinued the Karlstad leather version and changed over to a slightly smaller sofa with tufts, which Kay heartily dislikes “because they are old-fashioned”. Dun dun dun. Never heard him call anything old-fashioned before…

Karlsfors sofa for 1999CHF from IKEA.

I even scoured the interwebs for used corner sofas in leather from Karlstad. I came really close to finding one in Germany, but it was dark brown, which is a huge no-go for Kay and it wouldn’t match anyway. Oh well.

But as you can see, our TV area in the living room still looks empty and lonely. And I still wanted a corner sofa, badly.

I debated internally for a long time if it was worth it to keep Kay’s couch or incorporate it into a sectional layout. I loved the idea of the chaises in the sectional from YHL, so I dreamt up buying an all-in-one like this and situating it somewhere where we could still use both of the balcony doors.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was not a good idea to just get rid of a perfectly good sofa. And no matter how I worked it, it didn’t make sense to stick this beast in with our current sofa. It became too much.

I had fun playing with literally ALL the combinations of Karlstad sofas available and seeing what would work best for us. And as we used the living room the whole summer, Kay pointed out that we rarely went out the balcony doors by the sofa. Especially since now that he’s pushed the sofa all the way back to the balcony door, making them inaccessible.

Kay thought if it makes sense, we should just put a corner sofa wherever we please and use the door to the balcony by the dining table. I’m still annoyed that they open inwards because it wasn’t an option to change, but Kay is right… we are most often taking food in and out of the kitchen and it’s not necessary to have two doors to the balcony.

With all that in mind, I decided that the best fit for maximum seating would be a corner sofa without any chaises or add-ons. Now we just needed to figure out which color!

At 999CHF, white is actually the cheapest option. And if we are ever going to do white sofas, shouldn’t it be now, while we don’t have children? Kay was up for it even with the possibility of extra washing, but after looking at our space, I just didn’t feel like white fit in with our dark brown floors and purple wall. It would be a better match for the light oak in some homes here.

Of course, I still loved the idea of the dark grey, but I wanted to explore other options too.

The green was in our color scheme, but not bright enough to match our walls and it just seemed a little too cooky for our style. I don’t want any problems selling this sofa in a few years!

And purple. I’m not sure I could convince Kay about the new Sivik purple. I got the color on the walls, but an entire sofa is another deal. It’s also not the same hue as our walls and it’s a little more expensive. Hmm.

There was one thing clear. We would be buying the metal legs to match the leather sofa. Even if the sofas are different material and color, the shape is the same and the legs will match!What color do you think we chose? Anybody else a big Karl fan?