Best place to buy a sofa? And places to avoid?

[ShirleyPhallus]

Looking for recommendations thanks, I love fabric sofas, currently have an olive green velvet sofa which I love but looking for recommendations of good, hard wearing sofas

I don’t want leather or Laura Ashley style ones, but more modern looking one.

Anywhere to avoid?

TIA

My sofa came from SofaSofa. It's been great and survived two cats trying to destroy it. They make the sofas in the UK and are good quality.

My DFS sofa has taken over a decade of battering and its still going strong.

Avoid furniture village. Sofa collapsed. Took about 9 months of messing us about before finally getting our money back in small claims court. Judge had no idea why they hadn't just refunded us in the first place.

Made sofa collapsed after 3 years, holes etc, broken frame with just me sitting on it. Hruumph.

*Please avoid Next at all costs

I agree. Delivery was fine, but our three seater, which gets the most use, is very battered looking and hasn't worn well at all. Our previous sofas lasted for 23 years.

@Cherrysoup apologies for the delay in replying. I've just been snuggled up with DH catching up on In the Name of the Rose, a rare treat.

I attach 2 pictures of the sofa. I hope you can see the material. We had it 'armour shielded' or some such, to prevent stains. So far, so good.

It's almost like a fake suede, thinking about it, but hardly any nap.

We bought ours from James and Rose www.jamesandrose.co.uk/ it’s the Haighton four seat sofa in the same teal velvet they show on the website though their fabric range is huge.
It’s one of my favourite home purchases ever, beautiful sofa, great quality and so comfortable.
The only down side is velvet attracts cat hair 😂
The service was fantastic and I don’t think I’d shop anywhere else now.

Avoid dunelm. I’m really happy with the sofa it’s holding up well, good price and comfy but the delivery was abysmal, and the delivery company damaged the sofa (marked the back which luckily is against the wall) and damaged the house too. Cowboys.

Darlings of Chelsea. Lovely comfortable well made sofas and great customer service

Nabru. You can design your own and it has storage

Our black leather sofa was £300 in fenwicks sale ten years ago..still like new

Alston sofas are great but if you really want to splash out google Duresta .

We have a leather sofa in our kitchen from ikea and it’s been one of my best house buys . Easy to keep clean and incredibly comfortable too .

As for best place either an independent furniture shop or ikea .

I eventually want new sofas (part of full overhaul of lounge). I am worried as I know that quality now is not likely the same as our current one which we got from the now gone Courts 17 years ago.

Our sofa bed was an independent (in a dodgy back street) but is fantastic.

My Ikea sofa is doing very well and I’ve seen you can get velvet replacement covers (from a different company). Have also just ordered a sofa from Sofa. Fingers crossed.

We have recently bought one from dunelm of all places and its beautiful so pleased with it. We have had a few from DFS but dunelm were quicker and more modern.

Highly recommend Sofas and Stuff. We’ve bought twice from there and been really pleased.

Soda.com is great. Bought one there years ago and it's still great. Whereas the slightly cheaper one we got from Homebase at the same time is in awful nick.

You don't say what your budget is, but my advice would definitely buy the very best you can afford. We have just had our 17 year old sofa recovered and it's like new (John Sankey originally ) and have bought a Loaf sofa for the same room in a toning colour. The Loaf one is gorgeous but it was very expensive so I really hope it will last like the other one. It was from their discount site, which is worth a look as they have new things in all the time. My other advice is to definitely go and sit on the sofa you like the look of. We bought one online a while ago and when you sat on it, you couldn't get up as it was so low. That one had to go very soon after.

Sofa.com, although lovely sofas, were an absolute shit show regarding delivery. We waited and waited, no shows galore, the MD even got involved. It really took the shine off actually getting the delivery. They were great in the actual shop but dx deliver for them and they are absolutely the worst company ever. Shockingly bad.

Ive got a Next sofa and arm chair its lasted years and is really well made. Would buy again

We had horrendous customer service from SofaWorkshop. We ordered in October and they eventually delivered the following May. Several failed delivery dates, the wrong sofa delivered at one point, it was a nightmare. We ordered a sofa and two chairs. One of the chairs fell apart after a few years. The sofa is now on its last legs but to be honest it has had a lot of use and is now 12 years old.

A few years ago we bought a sofa from Furniture Village for our kitchen and its lovely. Really comfortable and hard wearing.

Ikea. Our Ektorps are now 15 years old and still going strong. We've had 3 sets of covers in that time (for redecoration) and have moved house (and country!) 5 times. No sagging, cracking or breaking.