As a new decade dawned I resolved myself to tweaking our shared spaces in the Kid Bucket List home, starting with the lounge. For those of you have followed the Kid Bucket List adventures for a while now would know that I have always been hesitant to spend money on styling our house, updating our car or even purchasing artwork for our walls, saving it all for our travels. However, with the kids hitting double digits, our house has become a place that they want to spend more time – so I am on a quest to make it more homely.
I posted on our Kid Bucket List Facebook page that the kids have hit double digits and for them, home has become really important and they want to spend time in it, lounging around, chatting to friends, creating bizarre TikTok videos, munching on chips and generally changing my whole perception on what we need our house to do for our family.
By some quirk of fate, Koala reached out to collaborate with me and within a couple of hours, I had a brand new Koala sofa and ottoman to kickstart my home makeover. Having purchased our first artwork over the summer, I was chuffed that it was all starting to come together.
So why a Koala Sofa?
Table of Contents
The turnaround time on delivery
There were a number of reasons that Koala sofa really appealed to me, starting with that turn around time I mentioned above. If you’ve purchased a sofa previously you would no doubt know that when you enter a showroom, select your sofa and then pay for it you usually then need to wait around 12 weeks for it to arrive. Who’s got time for that?! Luckily with the Koala Sofa, you have a mere 4-hour turnaround. Oh yeah, and it’s FREE delivery!
Turtle Adoption
Last year the kids checked swim with a turtle off their bucket list during our trip to Cairns. It was a magical moment and one I hope my grandchildren can experience. You see turtles are finding it tricky these days thanks to a combination of global warming, habitat destruction, and microplastics.
What’s that got to do with Koala Sofas? Well, here’s the amazing thing – with every Koala sofa you buy you also make a symbolic turtle adoption thanks to Koala’s partnership with WWF Australia. Brillant!
Quick Assembly
When I was researching I noted that the Koala Sofa can be assembled without tools and within a few minutes. I was thinking that it might be a little like origami – I wasn’t too far from the truth.
My Koala Sofa arrived when I was home alone. I was so excited about its arrival I decided to unpack and put it together myself. I was a little overwhelmed when I realised that there were 3 boxes per sofa, so I watched the assembly video. Then I watched it again and then began.
I was able to assemble the Koala Sofa by myself in around 15 minutes. The ottoman took a few minutes and was super simple. After a quick break, I set about assembling our second couch and was able to do so in around 5 minutes.
The sofas don’t have a simple click and snap style assembly. They come with a series of screws with little handles to secure each part. There are little zipper compartments that you undo and put your hand in to access the holes to bold. It’s a little like those MECCANO sets we played with as kids but in adult size!
The easy assembly also works in reverse, which is perfect for families that move a lot. It also means that they can pretty much move into any space you want – including the attic, with ease.
Super Long
Tee and I are pretty tall, but shortly Striker will dwarf us having already moved beyond 6 feet. It has become pretty crowded in our living room and there’s no space and the furniture we currently have prevents us really stretching out if we’re all together.
I’m not sure about you, but I love a couch that I can fall asleep on without waking up with a kink in my neck. They are a little hard to come by when you’re tall though. Enter the Koala sofa.
I do have a confession, every evening since our Koala sofa has arrived I have fallen asleep on it. Every.single.night. And I am yet to wake up sore. In fact, I think it’s doing me a whole lt of good!
The Koala Sofa is around 233 cm long, with the base about 189 cm. Super long, super comfy. We are super impressed.
Sustainability – Is my Koala Sofa green?
The Australian summer has really driven home the need to be conscientious consumers so our ongoing impact on our Earth is reduced. When I started researching the Koala brand I found myself consistently smiling as I read about their commitment to sustainability.
However, when our Koala Sofa arrived, 3 boxes for each sofa and a further box for the ottoman, I was perplexed. As you would be aware, new products these days generally arrive in plastic. Single-use plastic too that is generally not reusable and pretty much ends up in the landfill. As I unpacked the boxes I noted the wrapping and thought back to what I had read about Koala and sustainability. This couldn’t be right!
Further research put me at ease. The Koala Sofa and its packaging are completely recyclable. Thankfully! We cut the sheets into A3 size and popped them in our yellow bin for recycling. Brilliant.
And the sofa itself? What about that? In the past, we have invested in leather couches thinking that they would be durable and is a natural product, environmentally good. Um …delusional, right? I’m feeling a lot more easy about our new sofas.
The Koala sofa is FSC® Certified. A few letters initially sound good, but what does that actually mean? FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council. They have strict standards in place to ensure responsibly managed forests.
All the material in the Koala sofa is created from sustainable sources. Yay! I should also mention that there’s no AZO dyes or formaldehyde in the sofa either. I think that means if our dog every chooses to chew on it, he won’t die from consuming any harsh chemicals!
Durability – is it family and pet-friendly?
When investing in a sofa as a family and/or pet owner you really want to make sure the material is going to stand up to the vigorous amount of spot cleaning, jumping, spills etc that it will probably need to endure over time.
The Koala team have spent a lot of time perfecting the material that they use for their sofas. It’s engineered to right here in Australia to be durable whilst being ridiculously soft without being itchy or rough. You can also remove the seat cushion and backrest cushion covers for spot cleaning. I’ve already cleaned some brekkie from the armrest and you can’t even tell there was a spill and the dog seems to find it comfy too.
Buying your own Koala Sofa
Looking at buying your own Koala Sofa? I know you are! Click here to look at their range (they sell an amazing bed too which I hear is incredible) and use MATESWITHKOALA for 10% off everything (the discount code requires no minimum order, is applicable on all products, and has no expiration date. However the discount code cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer)
They also have an amazing risk-free 120-night trial period across the whole Koala range. If you don’t fall in love with your sofa you can ship it back and they’ll give you a full refund. In Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide they’ll even pick it up for free.
Koala Sofa Styling
So our next step is styling our living space. This was our lounge space prior to the arrival of our new Koala sofas. As you can see, it’s dark and not inviting. I’m hoping to create a space that the kids will want to be in when we are at home rather than in their rooms. I’ll post an update in a few weeks!
As mentioned earlier, Koala provided me with my Koala Sofas and ottomon. All opinions are my own!
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Hello,
My question is do the cushions stay in place or do you have to constantly push them back in? I really want to try out this couch but I’m in a rural place and I don’t want to have to send it back if I don’t like it.
They have velcro on the front part of the couch so they stay in place. They have never shifted forward on us