17th October 2017

Flexible Comfort: An Introduction to Modular Sofas

By Darlings Of Chelsea

 

Investing in a sofa doesn’t have to mean committing to a fixed living room layout for years to come. Modular sofas, sometimes known as sectional sofas, provide flexibility and freedom to adapt and adjust your seating to suit your needs.

What is a modular sofa?

A modular sofa is made up of several parts that can be put together to form a complete sofa or spread around a room as individual chairs or smaller sofas. A module could be a simple seat with just a back, it could have an arm on the left or right, it could be a corner piece to help make an L-shaped modular sofa, or it could be a simple seat module that can act as a footrest or a sofa extension depending on how you place it.

Lana Modular Sofa

All these different shaped modules give you total flexibility not only to set up the sofa you want but also to change it as often as you like.

What kind of rooms are they good for?

One of the great features of a modular sofa is how well it can work in any room. Smaller spaces really benefit by being able to fit a sofa neatly into a corner, and move elements of it around depending on the event and how many people you need to seat. Equally, in big rooms, a modular sofa lets you create much larger seating areas than conventional sofas, with long runs of seating modules and varied layouts such as L-shaped, U-shaped or even S-shaped seating areas.

Lucy Modular Sofa

How to assemble a modular sofa

Darlings of Chelsea modular sofas come fully assembled, so all you have to do is lay them out how you like. How you do this is totally up to you, but using modules is a great way to make a corner sofa. You can do that either with a corner piece or by simply putting a footstool module at the end of the sofa to create a comfy and relaxing chaise end L-shaped sofa.

Morellia Modular Sofa

Modular sofas can even be used to create a U-shaped sofa, which works brilliantly in larger rooms or for family gatherings.

Advantages and disadvantages of a modular sofa

As discussed above, one of the great advantages of using a modular sofa is how flexible it is. One day you can have a huge U-shaped sofa for all the family, and the next day you can have a cosy loveseat and a handful of armchairs and footstools. You even have the flexibility to spread some of the modules to other rooms for day-to-day use and then bring them all together when you have guests over.

In addition, because modular sofas come in lots of smaller pieces, they are much easier to fit into smaller properties or those with difficult access like narrow staircases, tight corridors, or awkward doorways.

Alice Modular Sofa

Modular sofas are also easy to add to and expand if you find you need more seats, if your family gets bigger, or if you move into a larger property and want to keep your old furniture.

The main disadvantage to modular sofas is that they can slightly restrict the styles available to you. They work brilliantly for modern, square sofas, and especially those set a little lower to the ground, allowing you to easily mix and match sections, and use footstools as seats. However, they can be a little less well suited to more classic styles and especially those with complex or curvy designs that make it harder to break the sofa up into modules.

Modular sofas for businesses

For companies looking to add some soft seating to a waiting area or meeting room, modular sofas are a great solution. They can quickly be shifted around into different sizes or shapes depending on your needs and, because they are assembled from lots of smaller pieces, they’re much easier to clear away and store temporarily if you want to open up space for a function or a big stand-up meeting.  

Jasmine Modular Sofa

Modular sofa accessories

Footstools are great accessories to have with a modular sofa, giving you the flexibility to add extra seating or easily create another corner. We also love having plenty of scatter cushions, which help to tie the whole sofa as a single unit.

Haymarket Modular Sofa

As well as footstools and cushions, side tables and coffee tables really add to a sofa, especially a corner or U-shaped sofa, which looks great wrapped around a low coffee table.