A sofa can make or break a room. It needs to be functional, comfortable, and good-looking. And while I know a lot of people with pristine white sofas, we were never a white-sofa kind of family. How does one wrestle, jump, or eat a hot fudge sundae on a white sofa? Not to mention the cat?
We’ve been through more sofas than I care to admit. The one that has stood the test of time is our brown leather sofa from Room and Board, which we bought right before my son was born. I’d never liked leather sofas before, because they reminded me of the seventies, but I figured only leather would stand up to bottle spills and everything else a baby and toddler can do to furniture. I was right. Our son is twelve now, and the leather sofa is still with us. (I don’t think they still carry the exact design, but it’s similar to the Harding sofa). It’s gotten more comfortable over the years, and it has weathered the onslaught of family living well. It’s pretty scratched up, but because it’s a high quality leather, it’s the good kind of scratched up. It’s not a formal room sofa, but it’s a great family room sofa. Sure, the seat sags a little, but I dig the lived-in look for the room where we play Yahtzee, Monopoly, and Nerf wars. Here’s what it looks like now:
A place for the sturdy (ugly) old brown sofa – I just can’t quit you
Unfortunately, it’s brown. Did I mention I hate brown sofas? I’m trying to figure out why we bought it in brown in the first place. It was probably less expensive in brown, and it probably could be delivered more quickly. Also, our previous house was built in the 30s, and the living room where the sofa lived had all of the original details, like redwood flooring, build-in redwood bookshelves with beveled doors, a lovely fireplace. In that room, the brown really worked.
The canyon house has a living room upstairs, which greets you right when you walk through the front door. Grays and blues are my preferred palate, and the brown couch really would’t look right in there. Fortunately, the home has a family room directly beneath the living room. It’s a cozy room with a wall of brick housing the fireplace, exposed beams, and a wall of windows. In that room, the brown sofa works. We paired it with a brown leather recliner, my father-in-law’s favorite chair. My mother-in-law made him get rid of the chair, so we told him it could live here until such time as he can talk her into allowing it back into their home.
But that still left the living room, which is a bit more formal, although it would be a stretch to call any room or item in our house formal. We’re casual people. We have nice but casual things. After years of trying to find the right sofa, we ended up buying the Andre sofa from Room and Board a little over a year ago. We loved the clean lines and were okay with the very firm seat, as we wanted something that would keep its shape.
I also loved that the Andre sofa doesn’t have back cushions, which can look sloppy. We wanted our modern-not-formal living room to be a living space that also looked clean and cool, without any fuss. Also, I dream of Don Draper. So there’s that.
The Andre sofa from Room and Board – we had a nice but short-lived relationship
Great sofa, right? love the way this sofa looks in the showroom and in the catalog. I also loved in our house for the first few months.
Of course, we knew it would be wise to buy leather, because we brought a cat into our home six years ago. (She will remain unnamed, for the sake of her privacy). Cats are not easy on furniture. However, in the end, we decided to save three thousand dollars and buy it in fabric instead. We chose Dawson Charcoal, which is so Mad Men and goes really well with our concrete fireplace. I’d expected a strong gray, but it skews a bit olive gray in our house. Still, I think it works with the whole nature thing.
The moment it arrived, I loved the way it looked. But I could see the cat eyeing it, and I thought, “This can’t end well.” Here, the Andre sofa is pictured about five months in. (Please ignore the dying ficus just outside the window. I think this is supposed to be an indoor plant, but I moved it outside a couple of years ago because it needed light, and it’s too heavy to carry back in. Note to self: care for plants.)
For the first couple of months, we tried to keep the cat off of the sofa. If you have a cat, you know how impossible that is. The first time she vomited on the sofa, I was distraught. At that point, we’d only had the sofa for three months. I tried getting the vomit out using the product recommended by Room and Board, and when that didn’t work, I turned over the cushions and then just kept the sofa covered with a blanket unless we had company. It’s a shame to keep a nice sofa covered with a blanket, but I couldn’t figure any other way.
One day, I neglected to cover it with a blanket, and you can guess what happened: yes, she vomited on the other side of the cushion. At this point, figuring it couldn’t get any worse, I threw the cushion cover in the washing machine, using cold water on the delicate cycle. When the cover came out, the stain was gone, and the cover was almost the same color as when it went in, maybe just a tiny bit faded. So, I ended up doing twice more, every time the cat vomited on the cushions. After the third time, the cover began to be a little tight on the cushions, so those clean beautiful lines you see on the Andre? Gone.
But I was okay with that. I figured we still had a great sofa, although it looked a lot more lived in. It was clean, so all was well. Then, one morning, I noticed that the cat vomited on the back of the sofa overnight. Which actually required some sort of crazy feat of cat gymnastics. Months later, I’ve tried Room and Baord’s care instructions for fabric, googled “How to clean cat vomit off a sofa” a dozen times and have tried every remedy, from baking soda and vinegar to expensive enzyme products made in Sweden, but the stain still looks like this:
Sorry, I hope you weren’t eating. So, I’ve been keeping the stain covered with this beautiful quilt my mother-in-law made, which is really unfair to the quilt:
As you can see, this looks nothing like the Andre Sofa from Room and Board as pictured in the product shot. If this sofa lived in a more pristine house without a cat, maybe it would have held up well. Instead, it just looks kind of sad. And as the centerpiece of the main room in our home, it’s bothersome. I am all for making do with what you have, but this too-firm sofa with the giant vomit stain taking up primary real estate just bothers me.
So it’s time to consider this a failed experiment and move on to a new sofa. This time, obviously, we’re going with leather. But I still find myself extremely reluctant to pay $4800 plus tax for a sofa. I know, I know, we’ll live with it for years, but it seems that the $5,424.45 (after-tax price) would be better spent on our son’s college education, or maybe a vacation. So we’re looking for less expensive models. First we looked at Macy’s, but their offerings, sadly, still scream 1989. Macy’s sofas remind me of the house I grew up in, which is not a good thing. It was the Gulf Coast, and my mother was fond of three things: glass, seashells, and mauve. Which should totally not be allowed to be a color.
DWR’s Theatre sofa in leather looks pretty good, but I don’t like the silver legs. And it feels a bit business-like. Also, it’s $4,020 on sale, which is way too much for a sofa I don’t love. Actually, isn’t any price too much for a sofa you don’t love?
The Hamilton leather sofa by West Elm has a nice, clean look, and is much more affordable at $2,799, but it only comes in brown and green. Did I mention I hate brown? Also, we have a chair from West Elm that’s pretty spindly, so while I give West Elm credit for good looks, I don’t have a lot of faith in the stability and durability of their seating. Also, this sofa is only 81″, which is too short.
Which brings us to the Sven leather sofa by Article (which used to be Bryght). This is a great-looking sofa. It’s just the color I want, a neutral, easy-on-the-eyes gray that will go well with our concrete fireplace surround. And it’s only $1,799! That’s a fantastic price. IF it’s good quality. But how can one know? According to the Article website, they keep prices low by cutting out warehouses, salespersons, and other middlemen. The Everlane model for furniture. It makes sense, but still: how can you know that it’s comfortable if you can’t sit on it?
Shipping and returns are $49 each way, so technically, you could try the Sven sofa, and if it didn’t work, you could return it in pristine condition within 30 days and be out $98 for shipping, then go back to square one in the sofa search. But how many of us really return large, bulky furniture items? Also, I worry about return policies of companies I don’t know. Room and Board has a great return policy, and the feather in their cap, in addition to extremely high quality furniture, is customer service. But what kind of customer service would I be getting with Article? It’s impossible to know.
Update, 2022: we’ve had the Sven leather sofa for about six years and still use it daily. While the leather really does get better with age, the cushions could be more…cushiony. The sofa traveled to us with Paris, where it lived in our TV room (we may have been the only family in Paris with a TV room, but when you’re acclimating to a foreign country, watching movies helps a lot) and saw lots and lots of wear.
Despite the fact that the cushions have lost their shape, I continue to be a fan of the Sven. When we returned to our canyon house from expat years in Paris, we needed a new sofa fast while we waited for our furniture to cross the Atlantic, not to mention the entire US, during the height of the pandemic. So we ordered the Sven sofa in teal velvet due to quick delivery times and a happy history with Article.
Product images on this page:
- Sven sofa from Article
- Andre sofa from Room and Board
Items on this page, third photo from top
- Console table (third photo from top) from Anthropologie
- Room and Board slim console table in natural steel
- Yellow table lamp from CB2
- Wood and steel coffee table from Wisteria
- Striped throw from Anthropologie
- Blue-and-white striped porcelain tray from Target