Building a Non-Toxic Sofa

Here is my chemical-free new sofa!

We used maple because it is a hard wood that is non-aromatic (it does not have a strong terpene smell).

The stain we used was Naturhaus Harmonic, which will soon be available online. The ingredients are: beeswax, carnauba wax, shellac, and a cosmetic emulsifier. It had a very sweet smell for the first two days.

Other options for stains are AFM Safecoat WaterShield or Ecos.

The glue used was Titebond.

Sketch of my sofa

The Foam is a piece of 3" Natural Latex. This has a natural rubber smell (which doesn't fade completely with time) but does not give off chemicals the way conventional foam does, nor does it contain flame retardants.

Metal brackets reinfoce the frame so that the side piece can be leaned on. The inspiration picture had low sides that would not be as comfy; I didn't think I'd be able to curl up on that sofa.

The dimensions are 28 in depth (standard sofa depth), height from seat 16 in (fairly standard), length 5 feet (length was made to fit in my tiny house).

The inspiration

The costs were:

Maple 468
Metal Brackets 200
Labour 40 hours
Foam 804 (from a local shop. Much cheaper on Amazon)

Fabric 150
Sewing 237

Total was around $3500.

This is expensive, even for a chemical-free sofa.


Some other options might be to buy a sofa from a company that makes non-toxic sofas. Here are a few options:

GreenSofas : Start at $1600

Elka Home: Start at $2000

Viesso: Start at $2000