Sofa buying tips?

[slackerinabox]

Moving in a few weeks and I think our cruddy couch isn't making the move - less than 3 years old and the frame's cracked and the cushions compressed (we're not svelte people but we're also not 300 pounders that jump on their couch). This has pretty much been the norm, seems like we're buying a cheapie every few years.

Is it possible at all to get quality at less than $1,500? Our original budget for a couch was less than $1,000 but the more I research the more I see must have features (kiln dried frames, resilient seats, etc.) cost quite a bit more than the $300 ikea sets.. Is there a middle ground out there? Is there a brand/dealer that has quality pieces for more modest prices, or do you just have to spend the big bucks if you plan on keeping a couch more than a few years?

edit: after much foot dragging we finally ordered a couch from Crate and Barrel. Was made in the U.S. and seemed pretty sturdy, and not that much more than the import we were eying ($799 at my bobs made of compressed wood in china vs $999 solid hardwood frame and made in North Carolina).

 

[purbeast0]

ikea is the last place you want to get furniture from if you want quality and lasting furniture. quality furniture costs money.

when my wife and i were furniture shopping last fall after we got our first house, we looked at like 10+ different stores. ranging from like $8k for a sectional, to $600 for a full living room set. we ended up getting a sectional that was like $2200 or so and we love it. it had no interest for 18 months so we just financed it and am paying $100/paycheck on it. it's nearly paid off now.

you just have to go try out stuff and decide what you want. we spent more than initially planning but then we also though about it - this is for our home and we're going to be on it a lot, why cheap out on something that you want to look nice and have for a long time and to last?

our prior set in our apartment was a pleather couch + chair + 3 tables that ran us like $600. after 5 years there were massive rips in both the couch and chair. they were cheap as hell.

http://www.havertys.com/Product_49961

that's the one we ended up with. also got a coffee table from there too.

 

[silverpig]

My advice: get a cat. They'll tear up the couches so quickly you'll be happy you have a series of new crappy couches.

 

[DrPizza]

"kiln dried frames"
Uh, is there any furniture made with wood in it that *isn't* kiln dried?

 

[Baked]

I got my sectional from living spaces. The pieces are customized. This is the exact one I got but with recliner end pieces and no cup holder sections. It's super comfy.

Ps. The sofa is made to order by a local company. Took them a week to deliver from date of order. I've had it for close to 2 years now and it still looks like new.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Unless you spend 2000-3000 on ONE couch, you will be replacing them every 2-3 years (more often if you have kids/animals) etc.

Quality furniture is not only hard to find, it's also expensive.

 

[phucheneh]

Buy an el-cheapo $300-400 couch. The expensive ones are made just as shittily, and anyone that argues otherwise is just lying to themselves. They're all cheap wood pinned together, marginal differences in filler material, and a variety of fabrics that don't really correlate cost with durability.

There's a difference between, say, a solid oak dining room table and a particle board ikea dining room table. If you think you're going to rip open a couch and find the same stark difference...eh, no. The $300 and $1500 tables would both benefit equally from a box of screws and some 2x4's. Just buy what's comfortable.

 

[slackerinabox]

"kiln dried frames"
Uh, is there any furniture made with wood in it that *isn't* kiln dried?

Well, turns out my current sofa's made of the cheapest particle board you can imagine, and sofa frame material ranges from cardboard to kiln dried hardwood.. Lots of the budget (sub-$600) sofas use plywood

 

[W.C. Nimoy]

Agree with others on middle ground. Splurge if you can even if at the risk of overpaying a little for brand/useless warranty & appearance (it is furniture after all), & know you're avoiding 1lb foam & wobbly builds & crappy fabrid, or else going with the very cheapest ones from a reputable store with the best foam you can find, treat them as disposable- i.e. I'd go sams/costco before ikea (even though some of ikea's mattresses actually have some pretty high quality foam, but are bottom of barrel & they're as as-is as a flea market, warranty is useless). Some of the stuff at discount furniture warehouses that's a little more expensive- I've recently seen the exact same recliner, one of those omg $800 on sale for $400, was a rebranded simmons at big lots for a fraction of that.

But if you try to go cheaper, they're not necessarily going to fall apart on you or anything if not abusing or moving around too much, don't have rough kids etc. The main thing that happens & really quickly on cheap sofas is the foam degrades first, & you get sagging support, which starts to look & feel bad. You can always replace foam, assuming your upholstery isn't threadbare by then, but otherwise the main thing to look for when buying aside from sturdy build, comfortable well fitting upholstery, is "HD/HR" polyurethane, at least 2.2lb or even better firm latex. Shouldn't be a problem at your budget.

Splurge on high quality, or knowingly disposable with any length of time you get beyond a couple of years is bonus, is my advice. Also you can always reupholster.

 

[slackerinabox]

Buy an el-cheapo $300-400 couch. The expensive ones are made just as shittily, and anyone that argues otherwise is just lying to themselves. They're all cheap wood pinned together, marginal differences in filler material, and a variety of fabrics that don't really correlate cost with durability.

There's a difference between, say, a solid oak dining room table and a particle board ikea dining room table. If you think you're going to rip open a couch and find the same stark difference...eh, no. The $300 and $1500 tables would both benefit equally from a box of screws and some 2x4's. Just buy what's comfortable.

I was fearing that, actually what I'm fearing is that the $1,300 couch we like (crate and barrel) will be just as shitty as the set we're replacing... Everyone raves about pottery barn and crate and barrel but if the cost of entry for "good" is $2,000, $1,300 seems like a waste...

 

[DrPizza]

I think a big factor that a lot of people overlook is how furniture is treated. You spend $6000 on a couch, and that thing is well cared for. It's cleaned professionally, with new anti-stain stuff applied. The cat sticks one nail into that couch and the cat is declawed. You get a $400 couch, and the kids are allowed to jump up and down, and the cat is allowed to use the back corner that's not really visible anyway, as a scratching post.

But realistically, the difference in build cost between a cheap couch and an expensive couch can't be more than a couple hundred dollars. The rest is mark-up.

 

[phucheneh]

Personally, I wanna see pics of a completely covered couch that has a hardwood frame. I just don't see it...seems like a big cost increase that no one would ever know is there. Until they tried to move it.

Most of the really shitty couches I've seen are more flawed design than anything. E.g. a frame made of inexpensive materials with no support in the middle. Well, yeah, I coulda guessed that the bottom of the frame was going to eventually crack in the middle...

 

[BurnItDwn]

I must have just gotten lucky.

I spent $1000 or so in 2004 on a leather sofa at "Harlem Furniture" http://furniture.theroomplace.com/blog/harlem-furniture
I have it in my living room. it is very comfortable, and the leather is not in perfect condition, overall, it's still a nice couch.

I spent $1000 or so about 3 years ago on a dual reclining microfiber loveseat (with center console & cupholders) from "value city furniture." They are not exactly known for carrying the "best" brands, however, I got my kitchen table and chairs from them in 2004 and they are still going strong, so when I was looking for recliners for my theater room I included them in my list of places to check. They are very comfortable, and in perfect condition.

We have 2 cats, and thus far they have been kind to the furniture.

 

[TwiceOver]

No matter what you pay, just remember you are getting screwed. Just like cars, find a couple you like at various places, lay down a price and be ready to walk away. New furniture has such high margin it's ridiculous.

 

[Via]

If your room had any size limitations at all - measure out the area you wan the couch to be in as a guide.

Seriously - I lived in a nice townhouse for a while, and early on I bought a sofa without measuring. It was a little too big for the space and it pissed me off for a long time.

 

[Eug]

Unless you spend 2000-3000 on ONE couch, you will be replacing them every 2-3 years (more often if you have kids/animals) etc.

Quality furniture is not only hard to find, it's also expensive.

"Quality furniture" is often horrendously overpriced. We bought a middle of the road fabric sectional for under $1000 from a smaller furniture chain, despite the fact the exact same model was being sold by the parent chain for well over $1500. We've had it since 2007 and it's fine. The reason we got it cheap is because we got it on sale at the smaller chain, and the sales manager was willing to haggle too.

The point is you should almost never pay the full list price for furniture from the larger stores, at least around here, cuz if you're paying full price, you're likely getting fleeced. The only times paying advertised price makes sense is when the unit is on closeout or whatever.

I also bought a loveseat with pull-out bed from elsewhere. The loveseat is upholstered with decent quality leather, and was also under $1500, even though the original price was closer to $2000. It still looks essentially new in 2013, and we've had that since 2007 as well. From the same store I got a coffee table for $90 on closeout, even though it was listed for $300. It was the last in the store, and they wanted to make room.

So, if you're willing to wait, you can often get good deals. However, that may mean waiting for months, couchless. Indeed, that's what I did for my home theatre. An OK leather couch was going to cost $2000, so I just used our old crappy couch with cat-scratches on it until a couch we liked went on sale. Again it was under $1000, and in fact I got them to knock another $200 off it because I found a barely visible blemish in the leather in one spot.

We also bought a name branded chair and ottoman for over $2500. It's the same age and also in decent condition. It might be constructed a bit better, but definitely not twice as good. The fabric is also more expensive, but partially because it's embroidered fabric. (The first couch I mentioned is plain with no embroidered.)

As for Ikea, their couches generally suck for quality and are often uncomfortable. That said, I bought a fabric one for around $600 and it was fine until I moved 6 years later. Their other furniture is also of generally poor to mediocre quality, but I kept most of mine. When I assembled it I made sure to assemble it correctly, and in some pieces I actually added more screws to strengthen them up. I've had some of it for nearly 15 years now. My old living room Ikea furniture is now part of my home office furniture.

P.S. A relative is proud of the furniture they got 20 years ago, because the fabric is still in good condition. However, the foam is partially flattened, and the fabric, although still good, looks very dated in design now. So, yeah, the quality is indeed better, but to get it back to ideal quality would cost several hundred bucks again. Or even thousands if you re-upholster with top tier fabric, which seems pointless to me. Just buy a $1500 couch every 10 years instead.

 

[lk2500]

I went through the same thing recently - difficult time figuring out how to tell what exact quality furniture is and isn't.

Check out La-Z-Boy, they usually have one couch model on sale for $799, at least mine did. It's decent quality and has recliners built into each end. I won't even use the recliners on the end the way the couch is places in my family room, but it's cool having the high back on the couch. Works for me.

 

[TheUnk]

I went through the same thing recently - difficult time figuring out how to tell what exact quality furniture is and isn't.

Check out La-Z-Boy, they usually have one couch model on sale for $799, at least mine did. It's decent quality and has recliners built into each end. I won't even use the recliners on the end the way the couch is places in my family room, but it's cool having the high back on the couch. Works for me.

What is the deal with so many couches having such low backs now? Unless they recline they all seem really low, I just don't remember it being that way growing up. Sectionals are especially bad. It's not comfortable, which is the whole point of a couch if you ask me, and just ends up with people slouching to rest their head.

 

[DrPizza]

A tip, ymmv, we were about to pull the trigger on a full living room set from one of the nicer furniture stores in the area. As we walked around looking at the showroom, we noticed that most of the sets, when you purchased everything, plus end tables & coffee table, got a few hundred dollars off. Well, we had picked out a couch & loveseat, gone through all the fabrics and picked out the fabric we liked best. And we picked out a pair of end tables and a coffee table. I asked the guy how much everything was going to come to altogether. He started adding on the calculator. I asked, "is it just the sum of the prices, or is there a discount since it's an entire living room set. "Well, it's the entire amount, but tell you what I'll do. I'll give you 10% off the coffee table since you're buying everything." Told him we'd think on it, drove to another furniture store. They were having some idiotic special where they mailed keys to people and you had to see if your key opened the locked box. At least 100 people standing in line for that. Customer rep asked if I was here to try my key on the treasure chest. "No, I'm not dumb enough like those people to think I have the key. I'm here to buy a couch." She called one of the salesmen over. "I'm wondering if you guys could order <brand, model>." "Oh, as a matter of fact, we have one of those on the 3rd floor. Would you like to see it?" "I already know what it looks like. We've picked out the fabric - (whatever number). We felt jerked around by one salesman on the price, so wanted to know what your price is. We're ready to order and pay cash <flashes wallet filled with cash>." "Okay, I'll be right back." A few minutes later, "Okay, if I give you my best price, and it's lower than the other price, do you promise to buy it now?" "Yep."

He gave me the price, and I saved a HUGE amount of money - if I recall correctly, it was approximately the amount of the end tables and coffee table put together. I.e., the other guy would have had to give me the coffee table and end tables free instead of 10% off, in order to match the deal.

So, it appears that like at the car dealer, there's some room for bargaining on price.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I've been happy with Ethan Allen sofas and chairs in the past few years. They tend to make quality stuff and have a lot of fabric selections. You pick the couch, pick the fabric and 4-6 weeks later you get your custom upholstered sofa/chair.

They tend to hold up pretty good and wear well. My only gripe is the wood used in ALL furniture these days is the same crap wood everyone is using...typically southern yellow pine. Grows fast, crooked, and is cheap.

If you're not willing to pay a premium on the upholstry side, you can check out some of the sets, but much of the furniture these days, even name-brand is being shipped in containers out of China and is a huge YMMV. Typically they are poorly cut/selected wood pieces with even cheaper fasteners that won't hold up well over time....but are very cheap in comparison...so just read reviews where possible.

 

[Meractik]

marked for later...

 

[madoka]

Make me an offer on this one. Only lightly used and obviously very attractive and desirable.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/sex/couch-sex-guilty-plea-657302

 

[slackerinabox]

after much foot dragging we finally ordered a couch from Crate and Barrel. Was made in the U.S. and seemed pretty sturdy, and not that much more than the import we were eying ($799 at my bobs made of compressed wood in china vs $999 solid hardwood frame and made in North Carolina).

 

[JM Aggie08]

Don't be cheap.

A quality sofa will do wonders.

 

[tynopik]

buy used from yard sale for $20