Purchasing Furniture Little by Little
January 30, 2012
If you can’t afford to buy everything at once, don’t despair. Often the success of a decorating project is due to the fact that it was done slowly. It’s a good idea to live with each piece of furniture as it is introduced into the space before adding another. It’s also good to know you can do a lot with a few pieces of furniture, such as an upholstered sofa or love seat, two wooden chairs and a tea table or coffee table. Rather than concentrating on the fact that the room is bare, look at one area as if it were the entire room for now. If you have a focal point, such as a fireplace, arrange a conversation area around it with these pieces. You’ll be surprised at how livable you can make this one area. Try each piece in different positions. Sit in each chair or on the sofa. Imagine how the arrangement will function with other people. Then you can take your time to look at the rest of the room in the same way before tying it all together. Once you’ve chosen those first few pieces, everything else that follows should relate to them, so choose these items with care.
If the room still looks bare, fill in with inexpensive pieces that may eventually move to other areas of your home. There are also ways to fill in with color, pattern and inexpensive accessories for effect. These might include throw pillows, a wallhanging, framed posters, books, flowers, plants, lamps and collectibles that don’t cost a lot but look good.
Decorators have varying opinions about how you should furnish an entire home. Some think it’s best to buy one or two essential items for each room; others think it’s best to complete one room before moving to another. Some think you should purchase all the large and more expensive items first, because the less significant things will fall into place as you find them. Since most people moving into their first home are on a limited budget, the most practical and often the only option is buying little by little. Having an overall plan, however, ensures that you will make fewer mistakes, thus getting the most for your money. In this way, you won’t buy a sofa that’s the wrong size, shape and color, just because it’s on sale.
How to Buy the Right Sofa for Your Living Room
January 23, 2012
In many people, the thought of buying a sofa brings on a major anxiety attack. It suggests permanence and being a responsible adult, or is a big pain in the neck as well as a very large expense. It’s a good idea to be sure you really need or want a sofa because this isn’t something you buy on impulse, and you may make several trips to different showrooms before making a final choice. It is not, as many would believe, an absolute necessity, but it’s usually a piece of furniture everyone wants in a living room. Because it’s the anchor of a room, it’s best to look for one with classic lines. This isn’t the place to be trendy.
Upholstery Fabric
Picking out a sofa style is just the beginning. Once you’ve selected the sofa, you’ll be faced with the prospect of having it upholstered in any one of thousands of fabrics. It’s enough to unhinge the most informed shop-per. The way you see the sofa displayed in the showroom isn’t the way you have to live with it. You have lots of options, but you should know that some fabrics can as much as double the cost of the original sofa. Knowing this fact will enable you to edit out those fabrics that will move it out of your price range and concentrate only on those fabrics you can afford. In this way you’ll find the project exciting and challenging.
Fabric Colors and Patterns
When it comes to upholstery, it’s best to choose a solid color if your sofa will be placed against a wall. This will give you options for paint colors, wallpaper and drapery fabrics. If the sofa is placed out in the room, you can more easily get away with a pattern.
Neutral colors are always the safest and you can add colorful printed throw pillows for accent and excitement. Furthermore, you can change the look of a room more easily when the largest piece is a neutral such as beige, ivory or something in an earth tone. Shades of green are quite popular. This doesn’t mean that the fabric has to be plain and dull. Textured fabrics, such as damask or linen, in shades of neutral can be quite interesting.
Take Your Time
Don’t hesitate to ask to take fabric samples home with you to see how they will look in the room. While they are only samples, you can see if the color and print will go with the wall or rug colors and any other items you’ve already decided to put in that room.
Take your time and be as sure as you can about your choices. It will then take about six more weeks from ordering to delivery time. In those weeks you can actually forget what the sofa looks like. I knew a couple who were surprised when their sofa was delivered. They were convinced they had ordered something that looked entirely different. Take time to fall in love. You’ll be grateful every time you curl up with a book and a cup of tea, sink back for an afternoon of TV watching, or simply walk through the room and take it all in.
A Little Knowledge Goes a Long Way
With a little background knowledge you’ll be able to enter a showroom with confidence, ask intelligent questions and ultimately choose a sofa that will fit in with your lifestyle and the other furnishings in the room. Knowledge will also enable you to buy the very best quality item you can get for the amount you’ve allocated.
Usually a conservative approach is safest when buying expensive items. A sofa is an investment. You want it to grow by giving you a good return on your money. The return is that you love it more and more every day.
Undoing a Mistake
It’s unlikely that after doing your homework and taking the time to select the right sofa, you’ll find the colors or pattern are all wrong in the room. However, such a mistake can be rectified with slipcovers. This is an expensive solution. It’s better to get it right the first time.
In Praise of Comfort Above All
Every top decorator agrees that a sofa, more than any other piece of furniture, must be comfortable and classic in design. And they stress comfort, even over style. After all, if every time you sit on your sofa and feel the cushions are too hard or it’s too deep for gracefully getting up from, or you avoid stretching out on it, then it doesn’t matter how beautiful it is.
New York interior designer Mark Hampton knows the key to a good sofa: naps. “I would much rather take a nap downstairs on a big, soft sofa than go upstairs to bed,” he says.
Other Options
A polyurethane foam wrapped with down and feathers creates a firm but soft feel, and the seat cushions will retain their shape under great pressure. These sofas are much less expensive than those made entirely of down, and some people even prefer them. The foam makes the sofa a little firmer.
An all-foam sofa is inexpensive and will last eight to ten years. It’s not as comfortable as some others but it’s practical. It’s good to know that wherever you look for a sofa, you’ll always find a wide selection of all-foam sofas to fit your budget. This might be a good way to go until you can afford a better sofa. You’ll certainly get your money’s worth and then you can toss it.
What It Says
A sofa speaks volumes. If it’s stiff and formal, it says one thing. If it’s big and plump, it says another. Sometimes the style of a room dictates the type of sofa it should contain. If you’ve just moved into a house in the countryside, for example, you might consider a casual, relaxed-looking love seat or sofa. For a more formal look, consider a tufted or tailored sofa. A chesterfield leather tufted and rolled-arm sofa and a tuxedo sofa are considered to be cliches among venerable, classic designs and have maintained their position in the “not so comfortable but always reliably stylish” category.