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cimoreneWhen Wax's mom died we inherited her sofa, which she had recently bought second hand but in mint condition from one of her posh relations. This sofa is a solidly-built piece of construction with the frame made of massive pieces of solid wood here in Finland, custom upholstered in multiple beautiful tapestry fabrics that were coincidentally in MIL's favorite color (eggplant purple). It was waiting over here on our side of the house with lots of other big bits of furniture while the renovations were ongoing, because it was too big to fit into the other side while our furniture was all crammed into two rooms there. And while it was here, the BB escaped over to this side a few times and acquired the hobby of climbing up it to perch on the top (it was lying on its side to save space, so it made a very tall perch)... and shred the upholstery. Before we noticed this and had any way to put a stop to it, she had already destroyed the upholstery on the front of the arms to the point that the only way to save it would have been having it professionally reupholstered.
So when we moved over to this side, we started using it, although of course we knew it had to be replaced. It's a little too large for the room anyway, I suppose. But meanwhile it's quite comfortable, and since the upholstery was a lost cause we left it alone. By the time Tristana joined the household the fabric was completely gone on the fronts of the armrests, and she loved to play with it so much that she quickly started pulling out bits of polyfill. We caught her trying to eat a bit of the polyfill recently so we carefully wrapped some furniture covers around both ends of the sofa to forestall her... but instead she determined that the furniture covers are an amazing toy! See, she can duck under the cover and climb up the side of the sofa to the top of the armrest and sit there under the cover, attacking the upholstery randomly and wiggling around like a maniac. She's under there way MORE often now than before, actually.
This morning she spent like an hour playing inside the cover and then curled up on the arm of the sofa (still inside the cover) and took a nap. So we gave up and ordered an Ikea Ektorp loveseat in teal, which was what I'd been intending to get around to all along, and they'll take the old one away to recycle when they deliver it in a couple of weeks on Wax's day off.
I love Ektorp. I've wanted one of the big fat ones for ages, since I first sat in the models at an Ikea I suppose, when I moved to Finland. Also I love the oversized, round, overstuffed (English cottage?) shape. they're just delightful for lounging in. The Ektorp sofa is considerably larger than our Klippan that we've had most of the time though, and it never really occurred to me until recently that we could just get a 2-person one. This livingroom is ironically perhaps the smallest livingroom we've ever had (though maybe not the narrowest?) - Wax disagrees about this point - but regardless of any other features, this room has every wall broken up by doors or windows near the center, so there's almost no space to put the furniture if you didn't want to, I guess, make a little island conversation group around a coffee table in the center of it. Which is perhaps what people all did with their livingrooms in 1950 when nobody anticipated focusing your eyes continually on a screen attached to one of the walls. We had two of the smaller Ikea Ektorp Jennylund chairs for years, which share the rounded look but are smaller scale - even the arm radius is smaller, and the seat is considerably so.
Wax's mom had happily adopted them but now we're stuck with them again since her death. Wax's aunt has said she wanted them ages ago, but she's just left them here indefinitely so I guess if we don't drive an hour and a half to drop them off with her they're ours (to cart to the dump presumably because they're rather in the way as it is). So we know from experience that the thick cotton twill fabric of Ektorps is not nearly as claw-sharpening friendly to cats as this tapestry stuff. Tapestry fabric is evidently one of the nicest fabrics in the world to dig your claws into. Also this loveseat will be small enough that we can hopefully put some more sharpening toys and things to destroy around it to distract the little mischief.
So when we moved over to this side, we started using it, although of course we knew it had to be replaced. It's a little too large for the room anyway, I suppose. But meanwhile it's quite comfortable, and since the upholstery was a lost cause we left it alone. By the time Tristana joined the household the fabric was completely gone on the fronts of the armrests, and she loved to play with it so much that she quickly started pulling out bits of polyfill. We caught her trying to eat a bit of the polyfill recently so we carefully wrapped some furniture covers around both ends of the sofa to forestall her... but instead she determined that the furniture covers are an amazing toy! See, she can duck under the cover and climb up the side of the sofa to the top of the armrest and sit there under the cover, attacking the upholstery randomly and wiggling around like a maniac. She's under there way MORE often now than before, actually.
This morning she spent like an hour playing inside the cover and then curled up on the arm of the sofa (still inside the cover) and took a nap. So we gave up and ordered an Ikea Ektorp loveseat in teal, which was what I'd been intending to get around to all along, and they'll take the old one away to recycle when they deliver it in a couple of weeks on Wax's day off.
I love Ektorp. I've wanted one of the big fat ones for ages, since I first sat in the models at an Ikea I suppose, when I moved to Finland. Also I love the oversized, round, overstuffed (English cottage?) shape. they're just delightful for lounging in. The Ektorp sofa is considerably larger than our Klippan that we've had most of the time though, and it never really occurred to me until recently that we could just get a 2-person one. This livingroom is ironically perhaps the smallest livingroom we've ever had (though maybe not the narrowest?) - Wax disagrees about this point - but regardless of any other features, this room has every wall broken up by doors or windows near the center, so there's almost no space to put the furniture if you didn't want to, I guess, make a little island conversation group around a coffee table in the center of it. Which is perhaps what people all did with their livingrooms in 1950 when nobody anticipated focusing your eyes continually on a screen attached to one of the walls. We had two of the smaller Ikea Ektorp Jennylund chairs for years, which share the rounded look but are smaller scale - even the arm radius is smaller, and the seat is considerably so.
Wax's mom had happily adopted them but now we're stuck with them again since her death. Wax's aunt has said she wanted them ages ago, but she's just left them here indefinitely so I guess if we don't drive an hour and a half to drop them off with her they're ours (to cart to the dump presumably because they're rather in the way as it is). So we know from experience that the thick cotton twill fabric of Ektorps is not nearly as claw-sharpening friendly to cats as this tapestry stuff. Tapestry fabric is evidently one of the nicest fabrics in the world to dig your claws into. Also this loveseat will be small enough that we can hopefully put some more sharpening toys and things to destroy around it to distract the little mischief.
