This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.Any tips to get the most for my money? Is there a buying guide on /r/pf? (self.personalfinance)submitted by My wife and I are planning to buy a mattress this weekend. Are there places I should avoid? Is there a mattress buying guide you recommend? I read the one on consumer reports. edit: This sub is always so helpful. Thanks for all the replies! π Rendered by PID 74523 on app-782 at 2017-03-05 22:52:14.222683+00:00 running f3f09f7 country code: SG.CASTLECREEK Pergola with Adjustable Shade 8' x 8'steel framea shade that slides back and forth Today, I’m kicking off a new series on the blog featuring budget-friendly home decor that won’t break the bank. We will explore everything from sofas and rugs to window treatments and bedding. As you know, a high quality sofa is a requirement in every single home and apartment. It’s where we spend most of our time — watching TV, lounging, reading, or entertaining guests.
Who wants to binge watch Netflix on a crappy sofa? Many people believe that you have to sacrifice style or comfort for price. But that’s not true. If you do some research you can find sofas that meet all of your needs — stylish, good quality, comfortable, and affordable. To get you started, I put together a roundup of my favorite sofas that are the perfect scale for city living. Each sofa varies in style, comes in a variety of different fabric options and costs under $1,000.Sources are listed below (click on the link). 1. Archie – West Elm 2. Finn – West Elm 3. Ava Velvet Tufted Sleeper Sofa – Urban Outfitters 4. Henry – West Elm 5. Rue Apartment Sofa – CB2 6. Coronado – Apt 2B Which sofa is your favorite? Spread love it's the Gray Livin' way!There are those who would argue that a great piece of seating lasts a lifetime, but who wants to make that kind of commitment to a couch? Is it going to be passed down to successive generations?
You never hear children fighting over who gets the sectional. And yet, now that I need a new couch to replace the latest one I characteristically bought cheaply and treated poorly, I find myself rethinking my approach. It might be worthwhile after all to find out what goes into the design and construction of a high-end sofa as opposed to a budget model, and whether it’s worth investing the money.Thinking of sofas as interchangeable is wrongheaded, apparently. Magnus Breitling, director of product management for the chair maker Emeco and formerly with Vitra, the Swiss furniture company, set me straight on the subject of luxury sofas.“There’s a lot of intelligence that goes into the product, not just in construction but in sourcing,” Mr. Breitling said. “The effort and time is much higher than with a typical Macy’s or Ikea couch.” But then again, so is the price. One reason manufacturers like Ligne Roset or Vitra charge significantly more is the involvement of a top designer, Mr. Breitling said.
“You’re investing time and money in playing Ping-Pong with the designer because they have a vision.”Do I really want to spend an extra $5,000 to underwrite someone’s creative process? I may fall victim to designer names with clothes, but not sofas. For me, a more persuasive argument would be superior construction. Like many men, I am susceptible to the idea of things made by craftspeople using arcane tools and labor-intensive practices dating back to the Middle Ages. Kayel De Angelis of the New York upholsterer De Angelis, which was started more than 60 years ago by Mr. De Angelis’s grandfather Guido, is one such craftsman. To prove it, he began by tossing around woodworking terms I didn’t understand, like mortise and tenon.In a budget couch, Mr. De Angelis said, “you could see plywood frames that are stapled together, with foam rubber inside. Frames made in that way — give it a year or a little longer, and the arm might be loose.” The frame of a custom or high-end sofa by a manufacturer like Baker, he added, is usually a hardwood like ash or maple held together with glue and dowels or tongue-and-groove joints.
“The joint is just as strong as, or stronger than, the wood itself,” he said. “And, then, the multiple layers of the upholstery won’t degrade the way foam rubber will.” Mr. Breitling pointed to the cushions and outer layer as another point of difference. “The life cycle of the fabric or leather is much longer with an expensive couch,” he said. “Foam gets compressed and releases, and with time, the foam is wearing out.” But assuming I’m willing to invest in a really well-made sofa, how do I know if I am actually getting my $10,000 worth — or if I am paying $2,000 for materials and construction and $8,000 for marketing and cool Euro design?Annie Elliott, an interior designer in Washington with strong opinions on the subject, believes a five-figure couch isn’t just hype. “Unlike fashion, where you pay for style and name but not necessarily construction, with a sofa I think you are paying for quality,” Ms. Elliott said. “You’re getting things like feather and down cushions as opposed to foam.”
But you can buy a perfectly fine sofa, Ms. Elliott said, with a solid wood frame and feather-wrapped foam cushions, for as little as $1,500, if you find a deal. And she doesn’t see much difference in sofas priced in the midrange (say, between $2,000 and $4,000), other than shape or slight differences in fabric and cushion quality. “Now, when you get below $1,000, that’s where I think you have to be careful,” Ms. Elliott said, because manufacturers are probably cutting corners to keep the price down.Although Ms. Elliott sees the value in investing in a top-notch sofa, she believes it’s a purchase that’s conditional on your life stage. “If you’re in that nomadic stage, moving every few years, sometimes without movers, you don’t want to invest in an expensive sofa,” she said. “It’s going to get trashed.”What if you’re a bachelor settled into an apartment, but don’t want to buy an expensive sofa a future wife might hate?Ms. Elliott scoffed at the notion. “I think it’s depressing to buy everything quasi-disposable,” she said, and wait for someone to “rescue you from mediocrity.”
Please, let’s keep the conversation to furniture.One recent afternoon, with a better understanding of couch design and a willingness to spend more than $100, I visited a few Manhattan furniture stores. At West Elm, I found a classic boxy design called the Henry that seemed to typify all that perplexes me about couch shopping. It looked remarkably similar to another sofa, the Reeded Base designed by Barbara Barry for Baker, which I saw online. Yet the Baker sofa, which was 90 inches long, started at around $8,100, while the base price for the comparable 86-inch version of the Henry was around $1,000. Of course, there were differences. The Baker sofa comes in more than 1,000 fabric options and can be made in custom sizes, while the West Elm model is covered in something called “performance velvet” and comes in two colors (dove gray and mocha), though several other colors and fabrics can be special ordered. The frame of the Baker sofa is made of solid maple and has eight-way hand-tied springs, inserted after the coil springs are installed, to ensure stability, while the frame of the West Elm model is plywood.
The Baker sofa is more customizable and better constructed, and likely to be more comfortable as well, yet the West Elm version is very similar in design at a fraction of the cost. Do I mind sacrificing quality and the ability to customize for a significant savings? Would it be wise to invest in the Baker? Or better yet, could I find a couch that offered a satisfying mix of the two? At Room & Board I found an 89-inch sofa called the Wells for about $2,400, while Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams offered a similar midcentury-inspired couch I liked, with a hardwood frame and eight-gauge steel serpentine springs that supposedly helped eliminate “squeakage,” for around $2,000, on sale. Both were big improvements on my current couch. But neither offered the Porsche-like sofa engineering that I’d been hearing about.In our earlier conversation, Mr. Breitling had cited Poltrona Frau as a company that makes high-end sofas that last for decades, calling the leather “just incredible.” I paid a visit to the showroom in SoHo and caught sight of one with metal legs and an elegantly simple form, priced at $13,000.“
That’s the John-John,” the salesman told me, explaining that it was designed by Jean-Marie Massaud and named after John F. Kennedy Jr. I wasn’t crazy about the name, and the designer meant nothing to me, but my ears perked up when the salesman said that, like all Poltrona Frau sofas, it was “made by hand, by men working with simple tools.”I wanted to learn more. I called Roberto Archetti, the company’s brand director in Italy, and asked skeptically what goes into a $13,000 sofa. Calmly, Mr. Archetti began to pummel me with the sofa’s luxury features: the seat is solid beechwood; the feathers in the cushions are applied by hand; the full-grain leather is the highest quality and dyed through, so a surface scratch won’t reveal the white lining. And to achieve “maximum comfort,” Mr. Archetti said, the John-John went through several prototypes. He wasn’t done yet: the foam is formed by hand. The cows that provide the leather are kindly treated. As he spoke, I began to wonder if more R&D had gone into the John-John than the Boeing Dreamliner.When I hung up, I was overwhelmed, but still uncertain that a sofa was worth that kind of investment.