Lovesac

About Lovesac

Lovesac started with a guy and a sewing machine. In 1995 Shawn Nelson built an eight-foot, foam-filled beanbag in his parents’ Utah basement because he wanted somewhere better to sit. He turned it into a business in 1998, and for years that giant squishy Sac basically was the company.

Then the Sactional arrived in 2006 and changed what Lovesac is. The idea is almost stubbornly simple: two shapes — seats and sides — that snap together into whatever couch your room actually needs. Move somewhere smaller and you rearrange it. Have another kid and you add to it. Get sick of the colour and you buy new covers instead of a new sofa.

That last part is the bit that matters most. Every cover comes off and goes in the washing machine, there are more than 150 fabrics to choose from, and Lovesac keeps selling covers and modules for lines it launched years ago — so a discontinued fabric never strands you with a sofa you can’t refresh. The insert fabric is made from repurposed plastic bottles too, which is a nice bonus rather than the reason to buy.

It is not the cheap way to sit down. Sactionals are priced as a keep-it-for-a-decade thing, the total climbs fast once you start adding sides, and plenty of the fabrics lean practical rather than plush. But if you want a sofa you can wash, rearrange and keep adding to for years, very little else on the market works this way.