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Last year, right around this time, I was working on a feature story about sustainable home renovation (ha, it sounds like an oxymoron) for a national publication. I talked to LEED-certified designers, builders, and contractors. I interviewed leaders of sustainable building councils and organizations. And while I learned so much from all of my conversations, my biggest takeaway was a gut-wrenching panic about the amount of home-related (both building material and furnishings) waste that\u2019s created every single year. <\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t shocking, I know, but when you don\u2019t understand the full scope, it can be easy to overlook and just let yourself get excited about a room makeover not born out of necessity but out of want. (Stay with me.)<\/p>\n
According to the EPA, roughly 12 million tons of furniture and furnishings ended up in landfills in the last report I could find from 2018. While about 20% of that was combusted for energy recovery, nearly 80% remains in the landfill. That\u2019s 9.6 million tons. TONS, not pounds, so some quick math to understand poundage here would be about 192 BILLION pounds. A year. <\/em><\/strong>There are some efforts to recycle, but there is no measurable data available apart from mattresses, so it\u2019s hard to know how much is being reused and repurposed.<\/p>\n This is\u2026staggering. It\u2019s hard to even mentally process how much we\u2019re taking from our homes and disposing of either because it\u2019s broken and can\u2019t be fixed, it\u2019s broken and we don\u2019t want to go through the trouble or expense of fixing it, or we\u2019re onto new and \u201cbetter\u201d things. Sadly, so much of the furniture on the mainstream market today is not meant to last, which is part of the problem. It\u2019s \u201cfast furniture\u201d made of veneer-covered particle board, plastic, cheap wood and foam, built specifically to fill a temporary need, not to stay in our homes for decades (or even centuries as things used to do). Some things we can\u2019t help but dispose of, because there\u2019s no other way. But also\u2014and I\u2019m certainly guilty of this as well\u2014we\u2019ve grown so accustomed to seeing people buy a home only to rip it all out to the studs for their personal preferences, or go through sofas as quickly as I do deodorant in a heatwave (that\u2019s fast). <\/p>\n Of course, there\u2019s always the option to buy second-hand, vintage and antique to not bring a new piece into play that will eventually get tossed. This is such an approachable choice for furniture in particular, being that there is so much already out there, mostly in great shape, and even from current retailers if you prefer that over vintage. <\/p>\n But that\u2019s not what I\u2019m here to talk about in-depth today. What I am <\/em>here to share is how to make your sofa, specifically, have a longer life both for sustainability purposes but also because sometimes, you just don\u2019t have the budget for something new, or the timing isn\u2019t right. I\u2019m in this scenario myself, which is why I pitched the concept. I\u2019ve had my Interior Define Maxwell sectional since 2018. After years of pandemic-induced round-the-clock lounging, then newborn baby-induced round-the-clock sitting either to breastfeed, pump, or contact nap, my sofa is looking *rough*. Some of the cushions are flatter in spots than others, and the velvet is kind of bubbling weirdly (no clue why, and never seen that happen before). It\u2019s also proving to be a little too small for the number of people we normally have over sharing it with us.<\/p>\n I could just say \u201cScrew it, let\u2019s get something new,\u201d but that wouldn\u2019t work for us financially at the moment, and also nothing larger would fit in our current living room. That, and I\u2019m challenging myself (and now you if it makes sense to you) to stretch this puppy until I can\u2019t stretch it anymore. I brainstormed five ways to keep the heart of your couch beating for a few years more to keep it out of the eventual landfill for just a bit longer, though first, here are a few ideas if you ultimately need a new sofa, because I get it\u2026sometimes your needs change, specifically with how much seating is required in your home. That small apartment-sized sofa you got 10 years ago probably doesn\u2019t work in your now larger living space. But it doesn\u2019t have to go out on the curb! Consider:<\/p>\n Now, on to five ways to extend the life of your sofa, from the lowest and cheapest lift to a much larger (but longer lasting) investment. <\/p>\n\n