living room furniture?

[teachermom2834]

We need new living room furniture. Ours is at least 15 years old and it wasn't anything nice or expensive to start with. I want to budget and plan for a major furniture purchase but I don't even know where to start. This is one of those things where when all you have ever had is hand me down or Big Lots furniture (when you were really splurging) you don't even know how to purchase or what you want.

We just have our 12 yo dd and an eight pound pup left at home so we don't need something to be absolutely indestructible but that would still be nice. We eat in the living room and when the young adult kids do come home I don't want to fuss at them about being gentle on the furniture. And with young adults we could have grandbabies in the next few years and I 100% do not want to be that MIL or grandma that makes people feel uncomfortable about keeping her house pristine. So that is the situation. I probably want a sofa, loveseat, and two recliners. We have room for that.

So where do I even start if I am looking to invest in something decent and not just something cheap to get us by for a few years? (that is the previous MO on everything). What material do I want that will last and stay looking nice? What brands are most comfortable and durable? Is there any such thing as investing in furniture that will hold up or has this become another basically disposable item that nothing lasts very long? 

Help! Tell me what I want and where to buy it. LOL

[Kidlit]

I have the Ektorp sofa and loveseat from Ikea.  What I love about it is the set is that it has removable slip covers that can be washed!  For a very inexpensive set, it has held up surprisingly well for a family of six. Because what I REALLY want my next purchase to be is a nice leather set, I might end up purchasing another Ektorp set because of how durable my first set has been. 
 

I’m not sure this answers your question at all, but I thought I’d share. 

[Pawz4me]

North Carolina, and especially the area around the city of High Point, is or used to be called the furniture capital of the world. Here is a list of brands that are still associated with the area. All of them should be reasonably good quality. Over the years we've always been pleased with the quality/cost of La-Z-Boy products.

[mommyoffive]

I buy from all over.  Wayfair, IKEA , colders , target , walmart and on and on.  The sofa and love seat we bought from some cheap place 14 years ago still looks great.   We have a lot of antique furniture too from family.                We don't like leather for sofas or chairs.  We only like microfiber, that is just our personal preference.   Anyway we have cheap and expensive furniture.  

[Dynamite5]

check out the website Maiden Home. They have terrific furniture (I own some!) and it is well made and cuts out the middle man. Clean, simple lines and a wide variety of furniture. The company began as the result of a woman wanting decent, well-made furniture without the mark up. 

[Kanin]

I love IKEA and Wayfair.

[Momto6inIN]

You get what you pay for, generally.

When we want furniture that stands up well to hard use for many years, we go with LaZBoy and spend more for the fabric upgrades.

[teachermom2834]

Thanks all! We actually have a big LazyBoy showroom and they are made locally so that is a great place to start. I have looked there before but gotten overwhelmed with the choices. But I might look there this weekend and start to figure out what we will want.

I will look at the other places too. Thank you.

[MercyA]

Another vote for LaZBoy. We've been pleased with their durability and comfort and they have a ton of fabric choices. We have a living room set (armchair, footstool, loveseat, sofa) and a reclining sofa from them. They've been through a move and held up well with one exception--the reclining sofa is not made for hard jumping / rough treatment. 🙂 

[MercyA]

Just now, teachermom2834 said:

Thanks all! We actually have a big LazyBoy showroom and they are made locally so that is a great place to start. I have looked there before but gotten overwhelmed with the choices. But I might look there this weekend and start to figure out what we will want.

I will look at the other places too. Thank you.

I was overwhelmed too! Go in with a price range in mind. Look for styles you like in that range and then just do a lot of "sit" testing! You will quickly find that some are more comfortable for you than others. Don't be shy about asking if the price is the best they can do. We try never to buy furniture or mattresses without a bit of polite haggling. 

[Garga]

4 hours ago, hopeistheword said:

I have the Ektorp sofa and loveseat from Ikea.  What I love about it is the set is that it has removable slip covers that can be washed!  For a very inexpensive set, it has held up surprisingly well for a family of six. Because what I REALLY want my next purchase to be is a nice leather set, I might end up purchasing another Ektorp set because of how durable my first set has been. 
 

I’m not sure this answers your question at all, but I thought I’d share. 

We have an Ektorp sofa, but we haven’t been too hard on it.  I do hear people say those things are workhorses.  What’s come in handy is that we eat dinner on it with tv trays and my husband is a bit of a messy eater, so it’s been wonderful to be able to remove the cover and pop it in a regular washing machine and then pop it back on the couch.  

The only thing is that our Ektorp isn’t as soft as our preceeding sofa and I do miss having a softer sofa.  Also, the back of it doesn’t go past your shoulders, so you can never lean you head back and rest it while you’re sitting there. 

 

We’ve also had some Lazy Boy recliners for 25 years now and it wasn’t until just now that the arm of one of them broke when someone was roughhousing on the arm of the chair.  

 

So I agree with the others;  Ektorp sofas from Ikea and Lazy boy furniture are sturdy.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by Garga

[teachermom2834]

Next furniture question- I was looking at LazyBoy and they are still having their Labor Day sale. Is this the kind of thing that there is always a sale running and things are never full list price? Or should I save my pennies and watch for a sale a couple times a year? 
 

I know it sounds silly but when you grow up poor and never make major purchases or see your parents make major purchases these sorts of things are very overwhelming.

[Pawz4me]

40 minutes ago, Garga said:

We’ve also had some Lazy Boy recliners for 25 years now and it wasn’t until just now that the arm of one of them broke when someone was roughhousing on the arm of the chair.  

We have two La-Z-Boy recliners that were purchased in 1992. So they're almost 30 years old now. For reference, our boys are 21 and 24. 😉 We did a LOT of rocking and cuddling in those recliners. They still look and sit fine, although they're not much used anymore.

[gardenmom5]

Start by finding pictures of living rooms you like so you get an idea of what "look" you really want.  It helps to prevent impulse purchases, or a random purchase of something you'll regret.

[Alte Veste Academy]

When we moved into our new home last year, we bought two Aberdeen sofas and two Raleigh high leg recliners from La-Z-Boy, and we have been so happy with them. The Aberdeen sofa in particular is so comfortable that I am considering buying another for the upstairs loft. We did upgrade to iclean fabric which has been a breeze to keep clean.

[klmama]

We were looking at La-Z-Boy and had picked out what we wanted,  but then we visited Slumberland during one of their major sales and got the same furniture in slightly different but still very nice fabric for significantly less money.  

[Carol in Cal.]

Be sure you check measurements very carefully.  The last time I furnished an entire room, we actually cut out footprints of each major piece and moved them around on the floor to make sure that the layout would be functional.  (This was partly because the room has an odd diagonal wall, so it’s harder than normal to picture using it.).  My husband thought that we should be able to do this on graph paper, but I was glad that we didn’t since things like how much you would tend to move a chair around in normal use, and exactly how big of a walkway is enough, are sometimes harder to model in miniature.

Also, be aware the neutral colors usually have a ‘cast’ to them, and if you have several, the casts can clash.  Example—my old bathroom floor tiles from the 1930s or so have gray ones with a greenish cast to them.  I never noticed the green until I got beigey/taupey towels that should have looked great but clashed because they had a pinkish/purplish cast to them.  (I took them back, bought washcloths in every color I was considering, put them on a towel rack for a couple of days to see them in artificial and daylights, picked my favorite, and took the rest back when I bought the set of towels.)

Edited September 11, 2020 by Carol in Cal.

[teachermom2834]

6 minutes ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Be sure you check measurements very carefully.  The last time I furnished an entire room, we actually cut out footprints of each major piece and moved them around on the floor to make sure that the layout would be functional.  (This was partly because the room has an odd diagonal wall, so it’s harder than normal to picture using it.).  My husband thought that we should be able to do this on graph paper, but I was glad that we didn’t since things like how much you would tend to move a chair around in normal use, and exactly how big of a walkway is enough, are sometimes harder to model in miniature.

Also, be aware the neutral colors usually have a ‘cast’ to them, and if you have several, the casts can clash.  Example—my old bathroom floor tiles from the 1930s or so have gray ones with a greenish cast to them.  I never noticed the green until I got beigey/taupey towels that should have looked great but clashed because they had a pinkish/purplish cast to them.  (I took them back, bought washcloths in every color I was considering, put them on a towel rack for a couple of days to see them in artificial and daylights, picked my favorite, and took the rest back when I bought the set of towels.)

See, this is fantastic advice. But then I get overwhelmed and positive I am going to totally mess this up 😂

[Bambam]

I've been looking for living room furniture for a couple of years. I have 20+ year old La-Z-Boy set - sofa + recliner - that have held up remarkably well. But when I checked into their reviews online now, they don't seem to be the same quality.

I'd really, really like this next set of furniture to be my last set. I'm looking at FlexSteel now. I just need to make the drive to our closest storeroom. https://www.flexsteel.com/

[teachermom2834]

25 minutes ago, Bambam said:

I've been looking for living room furniture for a couple of years. I have 20+ year old La-Z-Boy set - sofa + recliner - that have held up remarkably well. But when I checked into their reviews online now, they don't seem to be the same quality.

I'd really, really like this next set of furniture to be my last set. I'm looking at FlexSteel now. I just need to make the drive to our closest storeroom. https://www.flexsteel.com/

Oh thanks. I clicked on the link and we actually have a store here in my little town that sells Flexsteel so that is easy to check out.

[klmama]

Flexsteel lasts forever.  As in, we have a 23 yo sofa in our basement that still looks fairly new.  MIL has one that's 40ish and looks great.  Both are quite out of style, but still going strong.  It's hard to get rid of a couch you dislike when it's in great shape, so choose your fabric carefully! 

[J-rap]

We recently moved and donated most of our thrift-store furniture that had been through 5 kids, 3 dogs, and 2 cats.  For the first time, we wanted to get furniture that was new 🙂 and a little nicer and would hopefully last some years!  We found some great deals at Macy's and Hom Furniture.  We bought a few special pieces at West Elm.  We'll have all of it for years, hopefully...  BUT, I've been surprised that even our nice bedroom set from Macy's already has some weird chipping going on (after only a year!).  It seems like my parents' 70-year-old furniture is still going strong without a single chip.  Theirs is all a really hard walnut that seems to withstand anything.

I agree that tried and true brands like L-Z-Boy will probably hold up well.  If we have to replace anything down the road, we'll probably check there.

Oh, we did get some really solid smaller pieces from Wayfare...  I'd go there when I knew exactly what I was looking for, and then thoroughly read reviews. 

[matrips]

We just bought new living room furniture this weekend! Our current tables, lamps, and chair are from the previous owner, and we had bought an inexpensive sofa/loveseat 8 years ago to tide us over.  I’m so excited!  We actually just bought it all from Rooms to Go and went all out, but it was a good sale.  Sofa, loveseat, chair, end tables, coffee table and lamps :). The sofa is a light steel blue color maybe?  Dark enough to hide dirt but not too dark.  Our last one was cream colored, never again.  And the material seems like it should hold up. Our previous set had a chenille like fabric that really got nubs and was hard to clean, and a previous microfiber couch sweats and get worn in places.  This seemed like a sturdier material.  I actually don’t need the sofa/loveseat to last the rest of my life; my tastes might change.  So I bought something nice that we really liked and should last quite a while, but without killing the budget or making me feel guilty if I want something else in 10 years.  My parents had the same sofa, table and lamps for over 50 years. The couch did go through a couple slip overs, but I don’t think I’ll be like my parents in that regard.

[alisoncooks]

Our Rooms 2 Go furniture has held up pretty well (14 years), though it's starting to show its age and we are thinking about replacing it. We went to the R2G showroom and looked around, since they're affordable and the current set lasted a decently long time. 

 

[skimomma]

Our Ikea Ektorp set is 20+ years old and is still going strong.  It has been sorely abused by pets and kids.  We are on our second set of slip covers.  The first set held up fine after multiple washings but we moved and needed a different color.  So nice that we could just get new covers instead of either having to get all new furniture or deal with new carpet/paint/window treatments.  The current set has been washed at least a dozen times and still looks great aside from the cat scratches.  I also had to wash all of the cushions once after a very naughty kitten incident.  I thought that would do them in for good but they came out just fine.  I don't think I can ever go back to not having slip cover furniture.

We also do the cut-out and place method.  Not for ourselves yet, since we have had the sane furniture forever, but for my mom who we have moved twice.  The furniture in the store looks smaller than it does once it gets into your house!  That is another plug for Ikea.  Most of their furniture is compact which works well in my old house with tiny rooms.

[KungFuPanda]

I can’t vouch for the quality, but I’m obsessed with the concept. I call it Lego furniture. 😀 

 

https://youtu.be/VOeNPGFvBqg

Edited September 13, 2020 by KungFuPanda

[theelfqueen]

We just got rid of our 10 year old Flexsteel couch and recliner. The frame was still solid but the fabric was wearing and one of the recliner handles snapped off.