Best Throw Pillows for an IKEA EKTORP Sofa: Aftermarket Sizes and Textures

Why pillows matter more on an EKTORP than on most sofas

The EKTORP is essentially a soft white box: a slipcovered cotton shell, low loose back cushions, rolled arms. No built-in visual texture, no contrast piping, no leather grain. That leaves the throw pillows to carry texture and color on their own. It also makes pillow shape a bigger deal than usual. A sad, half-deflated 18x18 on an EKTORP reads as part of the cushion field rather than as a deliberate object. On a tighter sofa with structured arms you can get away with a smaller pillow. Here you really can't.

Cover sizes and the two-inch insert rule

The default for a three-seat EKTORP is two 22x22 covers in the corners with 24x24 inserts inside them. For a loveseat, drop to 20x20 covers with 22x22 inserts. Inserts 2 inches larger than the cover is non-negotiable for a clean look on a slipcovered sofa: the cover compresses around the bigger insert and reads full. It isn't an EKTORP-specific quirk so much as the standard pro decorator move. One Reddit user puts it bluntly while advising another sofa owner on the same problem: get pillow inserts one size up from the size of the pillows to make them look extra full. Pillowflex from Amazon and ComfyDown's down-and-feather inserts are the two names that come up most often in those threads.

Why down or down-alternative inserts, not the cheap polyfill ones

Polyfill inserts are the default cheap-Amazon choice and they compress into a sad lump within a month. On an EKTORP that's especially obvious, because the back cushions are already soft, so a flat throw pillow just disappears into the silhouette. Feather-down or premium down-alternative inserts hold their shape, take the karate-chop dent, and survive being sat on. The price delta is real, roughly $15-35 per insert versus $5-10 for polyfill, but it's what separates a thrown-together look from a magazine look.

Texture, and the one boucle accent

The EKTORP slipcover is already a heavy, slightly slubby cotton. Pair it with smooth synthetics or shiny velvet and the textures fight each other. The cleanest moves are heavy linen (oatmeal, ivory, soft taupe), washed cotton, and a single textured boucle or corduroy pillow as the focal point. This is also where the EKTORP diverges from the IKEA HARMONY and current-style sofa playbook, where boucle on boucle is the dominant aesthetic. On an EKTORP, lean more vintage and more cozy. One linen pillow on each arm and one textured lumbar in the center is the EKTORP-correct formula.

The lumbar pillow on a loveseat

The EKTORP's seat depth is generous and the back angle is reclined. On a loveseat especially, a single 14x22 lumbar centered against the back changes the ergonomics for shorter sitters and visually anchors the middle of the sofa. A reader in one Reddit thread about a too-deep IKEA sofa described the same fix: putting a long pillow behind the cushions reduced the seat depth by almost 10 cm. The EKTORP isn't quite that deep, but the same physics apply, and a single textured lumbar running across a loveseat looks clean and editorial.

Anchoring color to the slipcover

Most EKTORPs in the wild are white, off-white, beige (Blekinge or Vittaryd), or occasionally a print. On the white and off-white covers, go tonal: ivory linen, oatmeal boucle, and a soft caramel or rust lumbar as the single warm note. On the beige covers, go cooler: stone, soft sage, or a muted blue lumbar. Avoid bright saturated colors as the lead pillow, since they flatten the slipcover instead of enriching it. Patterns can work, but they tend to compete with the EKTORP's already-strong silhouette; if you go patterned, keep it to one pillow.

Pillows first, slipcover second

Refreshing pillows is the cheapest visible change you can make. If the EKTORP still looks tired afterward, the next step is a fresh slipcover from IKEA (where it's still stocked) or from Bemz or Soferia in a non-IKEA fabric. Both companies cover the EKTORP loveseat, three-seat, sofa bed, and Pixbo variants, and sizes aren't interchangeable between sofa and sofa bed, so confirm the model first. Pillows first, slipcover second is the right order: pillows run $100-200 total and tell you whether you want to keep the sofa at all before you spend $400-800 on a new cover.