Name/Title: Susan, Owner
What was the inspiration for opening Knesting.com? After spending a couple of years living in Spain, I was excited to return to the States and setup a new home. Since I'd become accustomed to a tiny, furnished apartment full of cheerful IKEA home goods while abroad, IKEA was my first stop for decorating a new place on a budget. After wandering the living room maze for an hour, I was stumped how to create my own style with their limited slipcover options. I went home assuming someone online would offer a solution to this decorating dilemma. But I was shocked to discover no one in the US was making covers for the most popular IKEA sofa models. Fast forward a couple of years and some restless nights pondering the question, "Why isn't anyone making covers for IKEA furniture in the US?" Really, I'm not kidding. It kept me up at night. So eventually I decided to make it happen.
When did you launch Knesting.com? I opened my Etsy shop and began selling my first covers in 2010. Knesting.com was then launched a few months later in early 2011.
Where are the slipcovers produced? All of our slipcovers are proudly made in our home base of Atlanta, Georgia.
What is the current best selling item? The grey and yellow chevron slipcovers for the Ektorp armchair were our biggest sellers in 2012. And it seems like people still can't get enough of the fun chevron prints this year.
What is your favorite item? My favorite is our Oatmeal Linen slipcovers. The fabric is so lovely, yet also durable and it coordinates wonderfully with so many of our other fabric options. It is a great neutral color that can take on completely new looks by simply changing out throw pillows.
Other than your own, what is your favorite store? Obviously I am an IKEA junkie, but I love to mix up my décor with vintage pieces from local antique and thrift stores. My favorite shop here in Atlanta is Kudzu Antiques where I can always find an interesting old table, funky lamp, or a great vintage map for a quick home makeover.
For more about Knesting.com, visit their store page over at Marketplace.
(Images: Knesting.com)
Store History
- Founded: 2010
- Founded by: Susan Knight
- Headquarters: Atlanta, GA
After spending a couple of years living in Spain, I was excited to return to the States and setup a new home. Since I’d become accustomed to a tiny, furnished apartment full of cheerful IKEA home goods while abroad, IKEA was my first stop for decorating a new place on a budget. After wandering the living room maze for an hour, I was stumped how to create my own style with their limited slipcover options. I went home assuming someone online would offer a solution to this decorating dilemma. But I was shocked to discover no one in the US was making covers for the most popular IKEA sofa models. Fast forward a couple of years and some restless nights pondering the question, “Why isn’t anyone making covers for IKEA furniture in the US?” Really, I’m not kidding. It kept me up at night. So eventually I decided to make it happen. I opened my Etsy shop and began selling my first covers in 2010. Knesting.com was then launched a few months later in early 2011.
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i kind of wish you would stop posting these places. it's not that hard to find slipcovers for ikea furniture, firstly; just google "slipcovers for ikea furniture." plus, all the places that make slipcovers for ikea stuff seem to charge as much OR MORE than the furniture itself for the new cover. buy a $99 tullsta chair and a $96 cover from this lady (or a $188 cover from bemz)? i would rather just buy an awesome thrift store chair and have it custom upholstered, or buy a nicer chair in the first place.
Thank you for the post. I have googled about Ikea slip covers in the past with good results, but it's good to get a quick look at these fabrics and I'm glad to see they are made in the USA. I love slipcovers!
Personally, I am thrilled to see AT promoting small businesses based in the US. Keep them coming!
When you google "slipcovers for ikea furniture" most of the results are bizrate and ebay. So, actually this is helpful. If it's not helpful to you, move on.
It is very expensive to produce a custom made item - I think Knesting's prices are quite reasonable. Good luck getting your thrift store chair custom upholstered for $96.
I actually agree with hanc. Its good to promote and support small business but the business has to make sense. Sometimes...ok often, one gets the feeling that these businesses are just friends of AT because as cute and even perhaps useful as the idea may seem on the surface the business model does not make sense. To charge the same price for a "slipcover" as the cost of the actual chair just does not make any sense. Especially when your business model is based on an already very cheap item (i.e. IKEA furniture). The IKEA furniture shopper is a price based shopper so one should not be surprised or defensive to find that most will not spend the equivalent of the item purchased on a "slipcover".
A "slipcover" is not custom upholstery....it is simply a "slipcover". Who would pay for custom upholstery for an IKEA item anyway?
Violet+Violet....you seem pretty defensive dear are you ok? Its not personal...really.
Most nicer chairs are still going to be way more than 200 dollars and even if you got a 50 dollar thrift store chair and then did custom upholstery you're easily looking at $300 dollars, possibly more. Plus that $98 slipcover includes material which is expensive.
I'm with hanc. Slipcovers are great, but not at a price HIGHER than what I paid for the chair itself.
The question here is if you want to invest several hundreds of dollars into an Ikea couch. As bynskimiss points out, Ikea shoppers are very price-conscious so I'm not sure who the market is - maybe people who don't want to spend for a totally new couch but want an update and have a budget of a few hundred dollars. In the end, you'll have Ikea-quality bones that cost you $1000 or more. For some that's okay and for some that's ludicrous.
I'm wondering why people are finding these expensive; not all of them are. My daughter would like to buy a Karlstad with the light grey Isunda cover, and in Canada, that cover alone costs $329. It may well be much better quality that the Knesting one, but a light grey cover there costs $197. And it's washable.
I'll be sending her the link! :-)
Suggestion to Knesting: slipcovers for the Nils dining chair. Options are seriously limited at Ikea.
Pet peeve: "Nonplussed" means confused, not unimpressed.
My issue with the website isn't the prices actually - I know it seems counter-intuitive to buy a slipcover for Ikea furniture that costs more than the piece itself, but sometimes for customization it's worth it. And to be fair to Susan, the fabrics are really attractive!! But I can't justify dropping $150-$200 on a slipcover when I can't see a photo of the slipcover ON the furniture - whether it's Photoshopped or an actual photograph, it would really help to make the "No Photo Available" an unusual occurrence, not the norm on the site.
It's always nice to have more options... though Knesting doesn't cover as many ikea models as various other aftermarket options, and.definitely not my own sofa.
Sure, if you google now you'll find some options but maybe back in 2010 there weren't as many options. Sure, you could buy something else and not pay for a slipcover. Not sure why the folks posting here are being so nasty.
Love the slipcovers, Susan. Great variations of fabrics which gives the Ikea sofa a more expensive look. A great alternative to a fancy $2K couch or re-buying a couch every time I change my mind on the colors I want around the house.
I'm sure it's VERY personal to Susan.
I don't own any IKEA sofas or chairs, but I can certainly see the logic of this business even if the covers cost more than the chairs. Presumably the market for these is people who have already made the investment in the furniture and the original cover is destroyed or dull or shabby. No one is their right mind is going to buy and haul another piece of furniture from IKEA because they only need a new cover and not a new underlying piece. The sofa is a sunk cost, the question is do you want the same old boring IKEA choices or will you pay more for a nice range of fabric designs. To each his own...
whoa, whoa. sorry, i didn't intend to be nasty at all - it's just that i come to apartment therapy as a pretty low-budget shopper, so it can be really frustrating when they post these things (which to be fair, i've seen several posts about bemz on here), and i think "awesome! now i can have the snazzy sofa i've always wanted!" and then it turns out it costs more than my furniture did to begin with. yes, some of the ikea sofa covers are super expensive even from ikea. like i said, i was interested in the tullsta, and the cheapest tullsta covers costs like $3 less than the tullsta itself.
violet+violet and others are right though - brava to susan as a small business owner, i did not mean to denigrate her abilities or her shop's offerings - just to share a reaction that i, as a shopper on a limited budget, sometimes have to posts like this. just a comment, guys, not a referendum.
eta: "cheapest covers COST $3 less"
You could buy a better-quality piece in the first place, probably, but reupholstery is expensive, so in all likelihood it would cost more than getting an aftermarket ikea cover.
I'm with Hanc. I just don't see the logic in purchasing a slip cover that costs nearly the same price as the piece of furniture. Yes, it would end up costing more to buy a thrifted chair and have it custom upholstered, but that thrifted piece of furniture is likely to be a much better quality piece than most items purchased at Ikea.
"....But I was shocked to discover no one in the US was making covers for the most popular IKEA sofa models....."
The first item I bought on Weuweu was an slipcover for my Lillberg sofa, it was 4 years ago. This year I purchased my second slipcover from them http://www.flickr.com/photos/94587057@N03/8613580678/in/photostream