Snug fit slipcovers vs loose couch covers: An upholstery alternative?

What exactly are snug fit slipcovers and is it always better than loose fit slipcovers? This blogpost would show you what the differences are.

If you haven’t already come across our previous article on “What exactly is a slipcover?”, do check it out to gain a better understanding of how it’ll become the new alternative to upholstery.

Or if you prefer a quick video guide, check this out:

In a nutshell, a slipcover / loose cover (UK/AU) or sofa cover (popularised by IKEA) are simply removable, protective covers that go over your sofa.

 

Traditional Loose Fit Slipcovers

Most of the time when something thinks of a sofa slipcover, it’s instinctive to think of a round arm sofa that has pleated skirt and piping.

Something like this:

Or the Rachel Ashwell classic – shabby chic sofas with a predominantly white palette, and slipcovers typically accompanied with frills or ruffled skirt.

But it doesn’t mean that it’s always like that.

In 2016, we were inspired by the Gervasoni Ghost Sofa but were astounded by the crazy price tag of over 2000EUR.

Staying true to our roots that beautiful things need not be exorbitant – we hacked an IKEA couch into the ghost sofa. You may recall seeing this result:

Not too shabby eh?

Transition to Snug Fit Slipcovers

Interestingly, “snug fit slipcovers” is just a term that isn’t used widely by everyone yet but has existed for quite a while already.

We first coined the term with our Manstad sofa covers when we created slipcovers for it in individual parts.

You see, the trick to making a slipcover as upholstered/tailored looking as possible is to break down a sofa into smaller parts and giving each part a slipcover.

This was the end result for our first Manstad Snug Fit covers:

In fact, we took inspiration from an IKEA model known as the Karlstad, which works exactly in this concept. The IKEA Karlstad is a best sellers that has been included in the discontinued IKEA Sofa circa 2016 in several parts of the world.

Here’s a quick look at the IKEA Karlstad:

The Karlstad sofa was also incredibly popular for being one of the most easily hackable couches. You could:

• Swap the legs out
• Switch out slipcovers of your choice
• Add tufting buttons to cushions

Most importantly, it paved the way for the snug fit slipcovers of today.

Ushering in Custom Snug Fit Slipcovers

IKEA has snug fit slipcovers then, but can this be applied to made-to-measure covers that are traditionally loose?

The short answer is – yes.

“But I don’t want to take my sofa apart”, might be something you’d say.

And that’s okay, because you don’t have to.

At Comfort Works, we’ve worked out a way to make snug fit slipcovers that are easy to put on and does not require you to take the sofa apart.

IKEA had actually done this before the Karlstad – their Karlanda (Karlstad predecessor) actually had a single frame cover which would go over the armrests as well as the body. This means no disassembly whatsoever.

The finishing touch was just Velcro on the underside of the base – many other sofa brands (Muji, Lorenzo) make theirs the same way.

And if your sofa doesn’t originally have Velcro, you just need to staple them on. Here’s a tutorial on how to apply Velcro on Sofa.

Easy DIY Velcro Stapling

And that’s pretty much it. Just because you have a slipcover, does not mean it has to be a loose couch cover 🙂

Wanna learn more about slipcovers? Discover how our slipcovers are made here.