At the risk of being redundant, let me remind you – I am not an interior designer. I just love designing my home and cottage. My favorite pastime is the process of pouring through books and magazines, selecting looks I want to adapt in our space. I love mixing different fabrics to create texture, dimension, and interest in a room. Unfortunately, because I have no formal training, my process includes a certain amount of trial and error. Having been down this road (and paid the price), I want to give you some mistakes to avoid when selecting furniture.
I want to save you the time, money and stress that I’ve been through.
Reminder — Selecting Furniture is High Stakes
As I stressed in Part 1 of Selecting Furniture, foundational items like a sofa or chair are investment pieces. And there are so many things to consider when purchasing these core pieces. I outlined the key ones in this article, including scale, seat height, seat depth, tight back or cushion-back, etc.
I have made my mistakes in the past, like when we did not sit on a sofa before ordering it. Turns out that with the back cushions in place, the seat depth was too narrow to be comfortable for lounging. All was not lost, we’d just toss the back cushions on the floor when we wanted to settle in to watch a movie. But, I was determined to avoid that kind of mistake again.
Avoid My Mistakes
In ordering the new sofa and chair for our family room, I was trying to be SO careful. I was clear on the “look” I was going for in the room, and zeroed in on a timeless style, the English Roll Arm. At the showroom, I sat on the floor models, put my legs up and made sure they were comfortable (Sit Test). I made sure the scale would be perfect for the size of our family room (Here’s a good blog post on scale). I made sure the seat depth and height would work and be comfortable.
Try as I might, I still made some mistakes with these furniture pieces — expensive mistakes. Here are some mistakes to avoid when selecting your furniture:
Review the Order Paperwork with a Fine-Tooth Comb! Then Check and Cross-Check.
The order for the sofa and chair were written up. I reviewed them, but in hindsight, I didn’t go back to the tear-sheet and cross-check every detail. In my mind, some of those decisions were made:
- Sofa style
- Size- 84”
- Tight back
- Two seat cushions
- Turned casters
One HUGE design decision that I wasn’t aware of until it arrived in our home, was the back style—straight or rolled back. The chair was a straight back and the sofa I saw in the showroom was a straight back. I assumed the sofa I ordered was a straight back.
What arrived was a “rolled back”!
“Bells and Whistles” can change the intent of your Design
When we were placing the order, having a swivel base on the chair sounded like a great idea. The ability to turn the chair with ease sounded perfect. What I didn’t think through is that the swivel base would add a few inches to the seat height and the skirt. When the chair arrived and was set in place, the seat height was so high relative to the sofa that it felt like the chair Edith Ann sat in (the Lilly Tomlin character from Laugh-In).
Mistakes can be fixed – For a Price
Sofa Surgery
The roll-back turned out to be a complete misunderstanding with the paperwork and the manufacturer accepted responsibility. Rather than order a new custom sofa, they agreed to work with an upholsterer to remake the back from a roll back to a straight back. We now have a custom, custom sofa and it’s perfect.
Chair-Cut
With the swivel mechanism, the chair was way too high and was throwing the feel of the room off. It had to be removed. We consulted our upholsterer who said they could remove the swivel, install four legs and reduce the length of the skirt to adjust for the size difference. They did an amazing job, and the chair is now perfect.
However, it was a costly mistake. In addition to the cost of the swivel (roughly $250) the cost for the upholsterer’s services were about $400.
Lessons Learned
As in every aspect of life, you live and learn. These turned out to be two big mistakes to avoid when selecting furniture.
Rest assured, I won’t make these mistakes again. I can’t promise, however, that I won’t make some other mistake.
WETSU! WETSU!
XO JT
