I'm a bit disapointed in this. The sides are in the couch itself. You have to flip it upsided down and remove the velcro bottom to find them. If that was in the instructions we didn't see it. Caused a bit of stress. It was easy to put together but the size and the quality was less than I expected for the price. I would return it and shop for something diffeent if I had time. Its cute and will do, but less than expected.