The Ultimate Sofa Buying Guide

When it comes to buying a new sofa people immediately feel overwhelmed because it’s a huge decision.

It’s probably one of the most expensive pieces of furniture in most people’s home and let’s be honest you just don’t buy a sofa every day. So, you have to make sure that when you do is the right piece for you.

To make the decision easier I’ve created a list of things that you should consider before heading off the stores. This will save you time, money and it will make the whole process less stressful.

To make your life easier, I’ll list the minimum amount of information you should gather about your dream sofa before you start browsing the stores. I call this targeted research. Even if you are only looking for ideas on Pinterest as long as you know that you’re after a green velvet sofa that is minimum of three seater you have a much easier job and you will get results a lot quicker. Plus, it doesn’t shift your focus and you won’t be looking at everything, just the one thing you actually would love to buy.

Just make sure that you said realistic expectations for yourself so you’re looking for a thing that actually exists :)

Ok, so here are the main things you need to decide before starting to look for a new sofa:

1. Colour

First, you need to narrow down the colour options to a maximum of three, even though you will find a variety of shades of these colours. This is one of the most important aspects of your new furniture and it will have a major impact on the overall look of your interior. So it is very important that you get the right colour because later on it’s quite likely that you will match everything else to the colour of your sofa.

2. Texture

Most people don’t even think about this aspect of though it is super important. The look and feel of your entire living room depends heavily on the different textures and combinations of textures that you use. Just think about it, velvet has a very different feel and look to fabric or to leather, right? So make sure you decide beforehand what you’re so fat should be made out of because it’s equally important as what colour does it have or how does it look like.

3. Style

I know this is a difficult one but it’s the best to decide the style of your sofa before you start looking for one at Lee make a decision whether it’s classic, traditional, modern, rustic, Cottage Style, Scandinavian or maybe something else? When you think about style please go into detail: is you’re so fat standing on the floor or does it have legs, does your sofa have arm rests, does your sofa come with a cushion back or a normal one? Are these little details contribute to the overall style of the furniture and it’s quite important to know what you’re looking for because it might be important to you that you can clean and do your sofa, in this instance you’re definitely want to be looking for something that standing on legs so it is easy to clean underneath. An arm rest could be important for you because you have a habit that requires one. Just think about all the little things that you do, and the things you like and don’t like about your current sofa and make sure that the new one will fit most of your expectations.

If you’re about to head shopping, grab this sofa buying cheat sheet before you head off to the shops to ensure you make the best possible choice!

*By downloading this free content you will get access to the Design Like A Pro resource inventory, where you’ll find designer tips & seasonal shopping lists.

4. Size

Most importantly you need to make sure that you buy the right size of sofa for your room. You need to measure the space accurately and also ensure that the sofa with actually fit in your house – you need to measure the door through which you will need to take it through. You can take your measurements to the store and they will be able to tell you whether the new sofa that you’d like to buy will fit in your home or not.

You need to know how many people you’re looking to sit in one go because if you require a very big sofa it limits your choices to a modular design, if you definitely want a sofa bed because you don’t have a guest room, again, this will limit your choices. Whatever your criteria is, just make sure that you filter online accordingly or let your store assistant know about it before you get too excited about a piece that won’t meet your basic expectations.

5. Comfort

This is something that only you can define comfort means something different to everyone and make sure that whenever you buy a new piece of sofa you actually see it in a store before you buy it and use it and try whether it feels comfortable to you or not. If you enjoy watching telly while lying on the sofa make sure that you try whether Snoopy you’re looking at is comfortable enough for you or not.

6. Budget

Please please please do have a budget! it is impossible to shop a new sofa without deciding in advance how much are you willing to spend on it. you will visit compeltely different stores and look at totally different ranges depending on your budget. Go over or under if you feel that’s the right thing to do, but decide on a budget before you start your search – don’t just leave it to universe to guide you ;)

7. Cushions, blankets and decoration.

Some new sofas come with their own set of cushions doesn’t, if you’d like to decorate your sofa with a set of cushions make sure that you collect a fabric sample and take it with you two other stores so you can match it to the cushions that you’ll by. And remember the texture, and matching the textures is just as important as matching colour and pattern.

To help you make these decisions here are a couple of very generic roles that we often used in interior design:

if you’re sofa is a neutral colour you can combine it with a statement rug or use colourful patterned cushions with it
if your sofa has a visit colour or a busy pattern then we would usually match it with a simple rug and neutral cushions, of course, you can combine dark rich textures with colourful statement cushions too.
if you’ll buy a huge sofa, make sure you balance the look by optically separating the various functions in the room and make the various parts of your room layout look equally interesting.

If you loved these tips, here’s a cheat sheet that you can download and use when you’re buying your new sofa. This will guide you through the process, so you can make your decision easier and confidently tell your store assistant what is it that you want!

* For image credits, please click on the images.

If you found this article useful, grab this cheatsheet so that you remember the decision points later too ;)

*By downloading this free content you will get access to the Design Like A Pro resource inventory, where you’ll find designer tips & seasonal shopping lists.