IKEA EKHOLMA Sofa Reviews: Owner Reports + Our Verdict

A pocket spring seat at a mid-range price

The seat runs on a steel pocket spring unit with felt-lined cushions over 2.0 lb/cu.ft polyurethane foam, and the frame combines solid wood with particleboard, plywood, and fiberboard. Legs are solid wood with a stain and clear acrylic lacquer, which is why they read as furniture rather than as the plastic or raw pine IKEA often uses. Back cushions are recycled polyester fiber. Coverage is IKEA's standard 10-year limited warranty.

That is a legitimately mid-range specification. Pocket springs resist the flattening that ends foam-only sofas, and the felt liner over the foam is a detail cheaper lines skip. Owners who comment on the seat itself tend to describe it as firm but comfortable, with one first-time buyer calling it surprisingly comfortable for the price, and the firmness reads as supportive rather than hard in most reports.

Assembly is the recurring complaint

Almost every critical owner report lands on the same two things. The fitted cover is cut very tight, and getting it on is genuinely difficult, with one owner describing arms still sore from wrestling it into place and another recommending you have someone help. IKEA describes assembly as easy; multiple owners specifically say it was not, and one recommends paying for installation on the strength of that experience.

The second concern is the fixings. The sofa is heavy, and it is assembled with large plastic screws, which one owner reported needing to re-check weekly after one worked loose within two months. That is a single report against a 4.1-star average, so treat it as a caution rather than a pattern, but it is worth torquing the fixings properly on assembly and checking them once after a few weeks of use.

The exposed back, and where you can put it

One structural detail buyers should know before ordering: the back of the sofa is not finished. An owner who had bought IKEA furniture for years reported being disappointed to find the back exposed rather than covered, which matters entirely depending on placement. Against a wall it is irrelevant. Floating in the middle of a room, dividing an open-plan space, or with the back facing a doorway, it is very visible and cannot be fixed after the fact.

The fabric choice also draws comment. Kilanda, the textured option, feels scratchy to some owners, with one buyer planning to swap to the smoother Hakebo cover instead. Because covers are removable and sold separately, that is a fixable mistake, but it is cheaper to sit on the fabric in a store first than to buy a second cover.

Specs at a glance

Verified against IKEA's current US listing for the Kilanda brown-red three-seater:

• Price: $849
• Overall: 81 1/2 in wide, 33 1/2 in deep
• Seat: 21 5/8 in deep, 19 1/4 in high
• Seat support: steel pocket spring unit
• Foam: polyurethane, 2.0 lb/cu.ft, with a felt liner
• Legs: solid wood, stained and lacquered
• Cover: removable, machine wash warm
• Warranty: 10-year limited
• Rating: 4.1 stars across 101 reviews

The 19 1/4-inch seat height is notably higher than most of IKEA's range, and that is a real selling point rather than a footnote: taller seats are easier to stand up from, which matters for older buyers and anyone with knee trouble. One owner bought it specifically because they needed higher legs. The 21 5/8-inch seat depth is moderate, so this is an upright, conventional sofa rather than a lounging one.

Where it sits in IKEA's lineup

Against UPPLAND, the closest traditional-looking alternative, owners who have sat on both describe UPPLAND as the softer of the two and EKHOLMA as firmer, so the choice between them is largely a firmness preference. Against SALTSJÖBADEN at $499, EKHOLMA costs $350 more and buys you the traditional silhouette, the piped fitted cover, and the taller seat, rather than better core construction, since both run pocket springs.

The honest framing is that EKHOLMA is a style purchase with sound engineering underneath, not a construction upgrade. If you want the conventional look and the higher seat, the premium is fair. If you only care about how it sits and holds up, the cheaper spring-seat models in the range do that for less.

Living with it: covers, care, and fabrics

Covers are removable and machine washable warm, which is the practical advantage EKHOLMA has over most traditional-looking sofas at this price, where a spill usually means a professional clean. The trade is the fit: the same tailoring that gives the sofa its piped, fitted look is what makes the cover so hard to get back on. Plan on two people and some patience after every wash, and take the cover off the cushions before it is badly soiled rather than after, since a tight cover and a set-in stain are a bad combination.

Fabric choice deserves more thought here than on most IKEA sofas. Kilanda is the textured option and reads as the most traditional, but it is the one owners describe as scratchy against skin. The smoother alternatives solve that at the cost of some of the character. Because covers are sold separately you can change your mind later, but the cheaper route is to go to a store and put your forearm on each fabric for a minute before ordering, which is exactly the test the owner reports suggest people skipped.

A final note on placement, because it interacts with the unfinished back. At 81 1/2 inches wide and 33 1/2 inches deep, EKHOLMA needs a wall of roughly seven feet to sit against comfortably with room for the legs to read properly. In a smaller room, people are tempted to angle a sofa or float it away from the wall, and that is exactly the layout this model cannot do gracefully. Measure the wall you intend to use before ordering rather than assuming you can reposition it later.

Should you buy one

Buy EKHOLMA if you want a traditional upholstered look with washable covers, you prefer a firmer upright seat, or you specifically need a higher seat that is easy to get out of. The pocket spring construction and the 10-year warranty make it a reasonable long-term buy at $849, and owners who get past assembly are largely happy with it.

Skip it if the sofa needs to float in a room, because the back is unfinished. Skip it if you are assembling alone or dread fighting a tight cover, or budget for IKEA's assembly service. And skip Kilanda specifically if you are sensitive to texture, since the smoother covers solve that complaint entirely.