Our roundup of the craziest IKEA sofa hacks

If you’ve been looking at IKEA sofas for as long as we have, you’ll notice just how much IKEA has been trying to step up their sofa game by constantly adding all sorts of functionalities to their newer sofa models. 

It’s not unusual for IKEA sofas to come with features like removable sofa covers, interchangeable sofa legs, mounted neck rests, hidden storage compartments, and different styles of sofa beds, just to name a few. 

But despite them, legions of IKEA fans still love the thrill of hacking their favourite blue-box sofa to make them truly one-of-a-kind.

Fair warning: The hacks we’re about to share with you take IKEA sofa functionality to a whole new level. In fact, they’re so out-of-the-box (and pure genius) that you might even want to recreate them at home.

You can never have enough storage

A common issue that most homeowners have to deal with is figuring new ways to use their space more effectively.

A sofa can easily take up the most space in any living room, so it’s easy to see why someone would want to amp up their storage by giving their sofa more of it, like this EKTORP sofa that was hacked to accommodate a series of Trofast bins.

Using four TROFAST bins and a few H-profiles (either metal or plastic), the containers were mounted underneath the EKTORP, allowing for easy sliding out for convenient stowing.

Turn your sofa into a charging hub

It’s no fun running out of battery juice when you’re streaming a movie marathon, and while some of us have the luxury of having a power outlet located conveniently near our sofa, the rest of us sadly….don’t.

The good news is, there are some creative ways to work around this issue, and one of them is this LACK TV bench-turned charging hub that’s designed to be conveniently hidden behind the sofa.  

Of course, there are easier ways to do this with a sofa slipcover that has a built-in USB port and wireless charger, for example.

Did we mention more storage?

Though this isn’t exactly a sofa hack in the literal sense, we thought this particular hack using IKEA KALLAX shelves was worth mentioning. 

This ‘modification’ was made by Jelena, a Berlin-based YouTuber who did it with the intention of being more economical (and practical) with her space and furniture. 

Instead of hacking an existing IKEA sofa, what she did was build a bench sofa from scratch using IKEA KALLAX shelves, some loose wood pieces, cushion foam, fabric and power tools.

The result: A stunning DIY-ed KALLAX sofa bench with plenty of storage space underneath. Love!

The hack-friendly IKEA sofa 

This one also isn’t technically an IKEA sofa hack. but we love it so much that we’re still going to include it here anyway. 

If you haven’t heard of the IKEA EKEBOLl sofa, you’ll want to — it’s IKEA’s industrial-style sofa that combines wooden shelves in its metal frame for practical storage to a design that typically doesn’t have any.

And because of its industrial-style frame that can be configured to have its armrest on the left or right, or even arranged to be a sectional, we can see it being hacked into a shelf for books, shoes, children’s toys, gadgets or even a hanging garden.

In fact, we love The EKEBOL so much that we reviewed it here.

From un-fancy to pretty fancy 

Some IKEA hacks are done to save space, while others are done to save money, and that’s exactly what Krys Melo did with her IKEA KARLSTAD sofa. 

Krys wanted to make her sofa look more expensive and luxurious than it actually was, so she took her white IKEA KARLSTAD sofa covers and dyed them a gorgeous pink in her bathtub.

But she didn’t stop there — she took her sofa hack a couple of steps further by swapping out her KALLAX’s legs with mid-century pegs that she spray-painted with white and gold paint, and tufting her cushions with fabric buttons of the same colour.

What she ended up with was a stunning, pastel-pink mid-century-inspired work of art that’s barely recognised as an IKEA sofa.

Thinking of giving your sofa brand new look minus the hassle of DIY-ing your own hacks? Start with a machine-washable slipcover that you can customize to create the look you want. Take our sofa slipcover fabric samples for a test run here: