Where is good for sofas?

[Clymene]

Boring but I need a new sofa. I went to John Lewis yesterday and found one I liked but looked online today and the reviews all say the cushions filled with some environmentally friendly stuff become hard and lumpy after time so that's out.

Where is good? I need to be able to sit on the sofa and look at proper size fabric swatches not tiny squares.

Thanks for any advice

Many years ago we bought a sofa from DFS.

The fabric wore rather more quickly than we anticipated. Anyway, one day we had to search for the remote for the tv.
I put my hand down the back and pulled it back out , complete with a nasty gash on the back of my hand.
Basically it was an exposed nail jutting out of pallet wood.

About 20 years later, ( why didn't we learn???) the very same thing happened.

Our nearly 20 year old sofa from Laura Ashley is pristine, the cushions haven't sagged, the back cushions haven't warped and it still looks lovely, same as our nearly 25 year old sofa bed from John Lewis.

You get what you pay for.

Just to add... we have a Next armchair but the seat pad sagged very quickly.
Next we're very unhelpful so we approached an upholsterer.

She rolled her eyes at the seat pad and said she'd seen it all before. V poor quality.

I don’t know about now but we have a 15 year old M&S sofa bed that has lasted very well for what we paid for it.

Don’t go to Willow and Hall - we had a dreadful experience ordering from them earlier this year. Great before you order, fabric swatches, etc. Dreadful as soon as there’s a problem (arrived damaged).

I love Loaf but can’t afford new!

Look at places local to you that do seconds/cancelled orders/nearly new furniture, etc. I can suggest places we’ve looked at stuff near Bury St Edmunds and Retford if either is any good?! We ended up getting a Loaf sofa at a vastly discounted price from one of these.

We bought a leather sofa and 2x armchairs from Barker & Stonehouse and they have noticeably sagged and bowed over the last 5yr.
Really disappointing as I was intending to pay more and be rewarded with a longer 'lifespan' but I won't buy from them again now.

I've been looking & there's a local company with handmade sofas but they're over an hour away.

We have a really old multiYork sofa which is great & another about 15 years old which is saggy now 😔

I like some ikea sofas but they're too low. Am contemplating buying taller legs to swap for an ikea sofa. Has anyone done this?

I'll only buy from Barker & Stonehouse now. Their sofas are incredible quality 😊

I’ve got a Snug corner sofa, very comfortable and still looks new apart from where the cat scratched it and a DFS leather sofa which is nearly 2 years old (so not had a very long time) but also very comfortable and lovely soft leather.

Sofa.com
Love Your Home (but only one showroom, in Surrey)
Darlings of Chelsea

I have sofas from all of these and am happy with them.

Sofas & Stuff and Arlo & Jacob also seem good quality from the showrooms.

Have been warned off Loaf as looking very saggy and baggy after a few months and needing plumping multiple times a day to look decent. Plus many of their designs are incredibly low.

DFS is a shit show

The last 2 we had were Scs and neither were built to last. Very quickly had squeaky springs, the cushions sagged and the fabric looked old quickly, especially on the first one. Refused to even go in and look for our current one.

Just got a new one from DFS and so far so good. Smooth transaction, delivered in 7 weeks, really lovely delivery team and the sofa is really comfy. Watch out for their little trick of having loads that you can only see o line, not in store. They expect you to order one and have it delivered (paying £100 for delivery) and then if you don't like it they'll give you a full refund (due to distance selling laws) but charge you "up to" 20% of the purchase price to collect it!!

I bought my last 2 from SofaSofa. They are still going strong after 14 years. Excellent company but only one show room in Wales where they are made on site

We are on our second set of DFS leather sofas and they are excellent!

We had 2 previous from next and furniture village and fell apart straight away.

We spent a bit more and got one from Raft and it's brilliant, would highly recommend.

We got ours from SofaSofa, they are UK based and made to order. They didn’t take very long to arrive maybe a month. Didn’t go to their showroom in Wales as too far away from us but they offer a no qii quibble return if you don’t like it for any reason. It looks a lot more expensive than it was!

https://sofasofa.co.uk/

We had one from DFS which did not last long at all and this was before we had a Child

We have had our current leather one from furniture Village coming up to 21 years, it will be being replaced in a couple of years.

We have another sofa we got from a charity shop in our dining room which is so comfortable.

I'd avoid DFS. I have had a couple of leather sofas from them in the past that have worn pretty well (with dogs and kids). Recently, we ordered a velvet sofa and chair. Delivered very quickly but immediately started coming apart at the seams and becoming bumpy on the arm rests from either the underlay fabric or foam. Been a nightmare getting them to agree to replace them as they always want to come and 'repair' the issues. Today the replacements arrived and are even worse than the previous ones!! Lots of nicks and tears in the fabric and you can even see staples on the seams. I'm going to push for a refund and ditch them altogether. It's a shame as the chair is a gorgeous Joules pattern. Not sure where I'm going to try for replacement.

Sofology the worst we've ever had by miles. Seats have sagged terribly and it's less than 3 years old. Awful.
Dfs have never been a problem, will probably go back to them

Ooh thank you for the rec (and the previous poster). I like a lot of their sofas so this is promising!

We have three from Arlo & Jacob and one from Sofas & Stuff. Got them all about 4 years ago when we moved.

Of the A&J ones, the Chesterfield style one is great as is the big low 4 seater one (can't remember the model). One is in velvet and the other in wool. The corner sofa from there that we use in the kitchen isn't so great - saggy cushions, the backs have gone a bit limp, and the fabric (which is a linen mix) has fallen victim to the cat. It will probably be the first to go (sofa, not the cat).

The S&S sofa is also good and I'd say probably marginally better made than the A&J sofas, although I slightly regret the linen fabric we chose, as the cat has made a few pulls on it.

Marks and Spencer and Oak furniture land bought 2lovely but different sofa units from both.

Years ago bought beautiful 3piece suite from Darlings of Chelsea.Made in a little factory unit in Manchester ! Beautiful quality sofa,very well made .

We've had our leather sofa from DFS around 6 years and it still looks and feels good as new.

We got our sofas from JosephJames furniture. I highly recommend looking them up on their social media / website as they have many big brands at much lower prices. Delivery was within one week and sofas are perfect!

Barker and Stonehouse are fab and have really good quality sofas and furniture.

We replaced our sofas last year (we'd had them since we married in 1986 and they'd survived a child and 2 dogs). We weren't impressed by anything we could find in the standard places (apart from Parker Knoll but we couldn't see how it would fit through our doors). But then we found a small firm James&Rose with good reviews who turned out to be local so we got 2 sofas and a chair custom made - very pleased with them so far.

www.jamesandrose.co.uk