A sofa transformation with Bemz

A key part of my recent living-room makeover was updating our two sofas, but I knew the budget wouldn’t stretch to brand-new ones. I was also wary of throwing away furniture which was still perfectly useable, albeit a little tired-looking – after all it’s not a very sustainable approach, and getting rid of large items is a huge hassle. So, I was delighted to team up with Swedish company Bemz to show how you can easily and cheaply transform existing sofas – and they’re kindly offering my readers a 20% discount, so just scroll down for details.

If you’re not already familiar with Bemz, they make custom-fit covers for a vast range of IKEA sofas, armchairs and footstools, including discontinued models such as our ‘KARLSTAD’ ones. They also now sell a range of furniture legs which fit all IKEA sofas and any non-IKEA designs that have removable legs with an M8 screw, offering yet another way to customise your furniture and create something totally individual.

You can see a couple of photos showing what our sofas used to look like below. We bought them in 2012 for our old flat, which occupied the ground floor of a Victorian townhouse and had very large proportions. The dark charcoal-grey covers and steel base frames looked stunning in that setting, but they totally overwhelmed the much smaller living room in our current house. The covers had also developed an ugly sheen over years of use and had faded to near-white around the seams.

I was keen for the new covers to have a lighter colour to fit with the soft, minimalist look I was aiming for, but I wanted to avoid anything so pale that it would easily show stains. I’m very prone to spilling things and, although most Bemz covers are machine-washable, I didn’t want to have to remove and clean them every other week! What’s more, although I love the relaxed look of loose linen covers, I knew our cat would have a field day sinking his claws into anything less than fitted.

Luckily, Bemz has more than 250 different fabrics to choose from and will send out free samples to help you select the right one. After lots of umming and ahhing, I eventually opted for durable Panama cotton in ‘Zinc Grey’ – a versatile shade which isn’t too pale or too dark, and which works with all sorts of different accent colours.

For the new legs, I chose the slim black ‘ Sergel’ design, which is made of solid birch. It looks very elegant and understated, and it fits the minimalist feel of the redecorated living room perfectly. It also matches the black legs on other pieces of furniture.

I’m over the moon with our sofa transformation, and it feels great to give old furniture a new lease of life in this way. It’s certainly much better for the environment than buying replacements and, with prices starting at just £99 for covers and £12 for legs, it’s much better for the bank balance, too…

If you want to give your own sofa a makeover, the lovely people at Bemz are offering my readers 20% off any purchase until 19th November 2018. Just shop as normal on the website and enter the code ’20thesefourwalls’ when prompted at the checkout.  

Bemz kindly provided free covers and legs for our sofas, but as always all words and opinions are my own. 

All photography by Abi Dare