10 November 2019
A comfortable sofa is the largest and most important element of the living room furniture. The daily family life revolves around it. We use the sofa to rest, relax, watch TV, read our favourite press, cuddle, play with children, and sometimes also to do some overdue work on a laptop. So it is important that the sofa is pleasing to the eye as a beautiful piece of arrangement, at the same ensuring a comfortable rest for the entire family and fulfilling all our expectations regarding functionality.
If you have decided to buy a new comfortable sofa or a corner sofa for the living room, you should pay attention to some crucial aspects before choosing your dream piece of furniture. Here are the 7 essential things to bear in mind, irrespective of whether you want to buy a sofa online or in a furniture store.
1. Carefully check the dimensions
If you live in a spacious house where the living room itself is at least 40 m2 or more, a possible “dimensional error” may not be a major problem. However, if you have less space, be sure to check whether the piece of furniture of your choice fits into the place where you want to put it.
We suggest a very simple method, which requires merely a self-adhesive painting tape and a measuring tape. Check the sofa dimensions, then attach the tape to the floor where you want to place it and mark the furniture outline. You will immediately be sure that the size of the sofa will match the dimensions of the living room.
2. Match the sofa design to the living room arrangement
Everyone has different preferences as to the style in which we arrange our apartments. Some like minimalism, others prefer eclecticism and mixing of different trends. But let’s remember that moderation is the best advisor. Not everything goes well together, and excessive accessories can disturb the balance and harmony of the entire room. If you liked a richly decorated, classic-shape sofa with much quilting and stitching, while the living room is arranged in a high-tech style – think twice whether it is definitely the right choice.
3. Check the upholstery colour and texture live
If you want to choose the sofa colour based on online photos, remember that computer, smartphone and tablet screens often distort colours. Sometimes the monitors are not calibrated properly or may have different colour or white balance settings. Without going into technical details – what looks pink on the screen can actually be orange, for example. The best way is to see the fabric or leather stencil in person in the furniture showroom. Then you can be sure that you like both the colour and the texture of the chosen upholstery.
4. Don’t buy on impulse
You should think thoroughly the purchase of a sofa. The piece of furniture you’re buying is supposed to be used for at least a few years, so weigh the pros and cons carefully. Even if the sofa you see in a brick-and-mortar or online store captivates you with its design at first sight, give yourself some time to think. Firstly, ask yourself if this piece of furniture appeals to you enough to have it in your surroundings for a long time? Does it meet all your expectations in terms of functions? It might be all the rage right now, but will you still like it in six months, when new trends appear on the market?
5. Test the furniture comfort in the living room
The appearance is not everything – comfort is equally, if not more important. After all, you will use it for resting and spending time with your loved ones. So, you might check if you like its softness (some prefer their furniture a bit harder, others – soft and cosy), if the seat has the right depth (standard sofas have seats that are approx. 50 cm deep, while you may prefer a piece of furniture for lazing around – then choose a model whose seat is even 60–65 cm deep) and if the backrest is high enough to ensure comfort and convenient support for your neck (a good solution is furniture with movable headrests, which allow you to easily adjust the backrest height to your needs).
6. Think about who will use the sofa and how?
This is a very important issue to consider. You are probably not the only member of the household and your family will also spend time on the sofa. So think about whether it will only be used for daytime rest, or if you should be able to turn into an occasional sleeping space at night. Will it be a piece of furniture for socialising or rather lazing about and watching TV? Will it be used for relaxation only, or will you sometimes want to make it a home mini-office for work purposes? The answers to these questions will allow you to choose a sofa equipped with all the useful functions, such as the sleeping function, a liquor cabinet with a movable top that can be used as a handy table, or the relaxation function to easy unfold your armchair to a reclining position, so that you can watch TV comfortably.
7. Ask experts and utilise the available online tools
Sofas in ready configurations available in stores usually (but not always) offer a set of basic functions, such as a bedding container and a sleeping function. In that case, it is easier to decide for yourself. However, if you want to configure the sofa yourself with the selected modular system, the assistants at the furniture showroom can help you by suggesting the best options and available solutions. The customer advisor will tell you about the possibilities provided by modular systems, explain how to put the pieces together so as to easily use the various functions, and help you adjust the size and shape of the sofa to your expectations. He or she will also tell you how to use the 2D creator for your own furniture configuration online. Thanks to this tool, you will be able to put together different shapes until you choose the perfect layout for yourself.
A beautiful and comfortable sofa for the living room should give you positive visual and sensual experience. First of all, you should like it; what would be the point of buying something that does not meet your expectations?
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