Take a Seat...

With all the new updates in our living room (new tables, shelves, curtains, pillows, entertainment center, rug, etc.) the few key hand-me-downs we thought we could work around are starting to look tired. The one that sticks out the most is our couch. It's a little too large for our space now, and with its big round arms, it doesn't seem to jive with the rest of our furniture. Add to this that the cushions no longer return to their original form after being sat upon and you got yourself a recipe for one frumpy, over-sized piece of furniture.

So we started thinking of what we wanted in a new couch. First of all, we wanted something a little smaller than what we have now. So we started looking at apartment sized sofas (under 80"). We also decided that we would want to stick with a light colored fabric, our rational being that the couch is flanked by a dark brown end table and dark brown Barcelona chair. Light colors should balance the room better (also fabric should keep the price down a little compared to leather.)

The first couch we fell in love with was from West Elm. They have some great modern and transitional pieces that really match our style. The Henry measures in at a compact 76". This we like a lot since our current couch is 84" at its widest point. For $799 base price it seemed like a bargain, so we ordered up some fabric samples (it comes in a huge array of colors / textures) and started dreaming of a new living room. Unfortunately, when we got the fabric samples it quickly got reduced down to two and we didn't love the quality of them. On top of that key words like "engineered wood frame" got us further worried about quality.

Luckily we found this guy at Crate and Barrel. Talk about twins separated at birth! The Davis sofa looks almost identical to the Henry from West Elm, but with phrases like "Flexolator spring suspension", "Certified kiln-dried hardwood frame", and "Bench-made in North Carolina, USA" we were much more comfortable with the quality. The Davis sofa is a little larger than the Henry, measuring in at 78" long (which is still under our budgeted space of 80".) The other great thing about the Davis is that it is available in a pull out queen bed. At $1699 plus $89 shipping (there is no charge for custom fabrics, but they do require the shipping charge for colors they don't have in stock) we are getting a little pricey. But after some debate we decided that an additional bed in our house would be a huge plus. So once again we ordered the fabric samples, which once again got narrowed down to two, but this time the quality feels much better. We think this guy is the winner but we are going to wait until august to pull the trigger.