<p>Sigh. I just received delivery of a new sofa and loveseat that I special-ordered 5 weeks ago. I hate them. The color (and my kids were kind enough to point out) is reminiscent of baby puke. It reminds me of bad 1970’s appliances.</p>
<p>My dilemma is that I am stuck with these new pieces of furniture, because they were special ordered and cannot be returned. There are a variety of lessons-learned here that I am going to share with you for the sole purpose of getting them off my chest. (and in a pathetic grab for sympathy!)</p>
<p>Number one: never go furniture shopping with a hungry spouse. I ended up hurrying the decision because we had already been in the store way past dinner time. Not my husband’s fault – I was feeling guilty about keeping him in the store because I knew he was starving.</p>
<p>Number two: Never bond with your salesperson. I had a lovely interior designer/saleswoman who was nice and funny and very willing to spend long hours trying to help me make a decision about fabrics. By the time she had spent 4 cumulative hours with me on 3 separate visits, I felt that she had earned the sale. Stupid me.</p>
<p>Number three: If, on the morning after, your gut tells you you have made a really bad decision, listen to your gut. I failed to call the store and cancel the order, because I was too embarrassed to be perceived as “wishy washy”. </p>
<p>I am now trying to decide if I want to spend another $500 on slipcovers. Sigh. Has anyone else made a terrible purchase that they regretted later? (and does anyone want to buy a lovely olive green, gold, and rust sofa and loveseat? Ha ha.) :)</p>
<p>I hate my sofa and loveseat, too, which I custom ordered . I cover them with various throws, and usually I can forget that I hate the sofa and loveseat that I thought would match the colors in my family room, but don’t. I also like the colors in the family room, so refuse to change them.</p>
<p>what is your flooring?
I actually like olive- it is a good neutral color & I would love a new couch, unfortunately the way my living room is configured the only thing that will fit is a loveseat and I can’t get new ones because their arms are too wide for the room.</p>
<p>oh I just saw that it is a print-? That is going to be much harder to live with if it is a bad color.
green gold and rust does sound like retro- maybe you can sell it on ebay to someone who likes 70s stuff.</p>
<p>I feel bad for you- that is why I am still living with a loveseat that has an old quilt on it, because everything I try and replace it, I am overwhelmed with all the choices!</p>
<p>you could have it slip covered- but I would contact the salesperson for suggestions cause she may have more experience in options.</p>
<p>Add me to that list. I hate mine, too, but for different reasons. I bought a beautiful, butter-yellow cotton sofa and two gorgeous WHITE and gold toile chairs. Gorgeous. Formal. Did I mention white and butter-yellow in a house with three kids (including a little boy and his hands), a dog, a cat and a husband who is a pig. </p>
<p>Would throw pillows help? How about painting the walls?</p>
<p>I am going to go shop for throws and pillows to hide the fabric – I hate the color orange, and unfortunately, the combination of gold and rusty red in pattern looks like orange from a distance. Yuck.</p>
<p>Well…this won’t help you THIS time, but maybe next time. The lighting in those stores is AWFUL. The spaces are too large and the lights (usually fluorescent) are not color corrected to simulate outdoor lighting. We bought a new sofa about 4 years ago. We had to go to several different stores until we found someone who would let us borrow their fabric samples to bring home for a few days (so we could move them around in the daylight and at night, and when it was cloudy…etc). It took us a LOT of time to pick a fabric, but I’m happy to say, I love the fabric.</p>
<p>Now…the style of the couch…well…that is another story!! It looked much smaller in the HUGE showroom than it does in our family room!!!</p>
<p>Our floors are wood and our walls are pale gold, so the furniture actually looks fine in the overall color scheme. And since I just painted less than two years ago, painting is not an option anyway. Emerald – I was also overwhelmed by the choices. I had not planned on buying furniture right now. We had just replaced our 11 year old furniture (which was threadbare and had springs that were useless) with a leather sofa and loveseat that turned out to be defective. We were lucky that the store had an excellent return policy, and took them back with a full refund even though they were 10 months old. This left us with no furniture, so I had to start looking and make a decision rather quickly. I should have bought something cheap at Ikea until I found something I really liked.</p>
<p>Mini, I am ALWAYS grateful for those things, but it doesn’t change the fact that I spent a considerable amount of money on something I am unhappy with. In the grand scheme of things, it is a small issue, for certain. However, I am in the immediate aftermath and I feel entitled to feel sorry for myself for at least a few more days! :).</p>
<p>Here’s a tale of my recliner (maybe I shared it earlier):</p>
<p>My Chair (New American Family Style)</p>
<p>We moved into our current 1970s tract home (post-avocado and mustard periods) when the kids were still small. I brought my chair with me.</p>
<p>It was a recliner, purchased at the local Salvation Army store for $10. It was probably 15 years old when we first acquired it, and would last us some 15 more.</p>
<p>It was brown in color. Not brown as in chocolate. More like beefstew, in something resembling courderoy. It absorbed coffee stains and coffee spills well, and other than a little bit of caf</p>
<p>Sorry, OP, this is not going to help you, but it might save some heartache for future furniture shoppers in doubt of sizes/fit. Ever since I got this advice from a friend, whenever I need to buy furniture, I measure the exact piece in the showroom, go home, make a lifesize “footprint” of the piece out of newspapers taped together and spread it on the floor where I think the furniture should go. Of course, it is not as representative as a 3D model, but gives a pretty accurate idea about how much space there would be left for everything else.</p>
<p>My sympathies, orchid. I’ve had this happen with furniture, too, but it wasn’t the color that was a disappointment. It was a pair of loveseats that I loved in the store but when they arrived, after several weeks of custom ordering, they were the most uncomfortable loveseats I’d ever sat in! I still can’t figure out why I didn’t notice this in the store. We suffered through having them in our family room for many years until a few years ago when I finally said enough is enough, and we bought new furniture and retired them to our basement. So, it could be worse! If it’s just the color, what I would do is to spend some time and find some slipcovers you love. Good quality ones will cost you some $$ but once they’re on, you’ll enjoy the new furniture and forget what is underneath. At least then you can avoid feeling pangs of regret every single time you look at the sofa.</p>
<p>I had this experience about 27 years ago when I bought my first sofa for my first non-student apartment. And I had no hungry spouse excuse either LOL–was very single at the time. It was flowered and bold-colored and I just don’t know what I was thinking.</p>
<p>My solution was that I just wasn’t going to be able to live with it. It wasn’t custom ordered, but I managed to rip the back when moving it in the apartment! So Goodwill got a brand new sofa with a little rip. I bought a great, simple, white sofa that I then loved for years until I got married and my spouse had different taste :(. Yeah, it was a complete waste of money but I got pleasure every time I walked into my apartment with a peaceful white sofa that I loved. I think I still even have a picture of it. I would have been depressed with the other one. </p>
<p>Just know that you have lots of company in these bad furniture decisions!!</p>
<p>For years we lived with foggy windows. We finally had the money to have them replaced. An acquaintance of my husband’s had his done and recommended the company. We had the sales guy out, they looked good and the price was right. </p>
<p>I hate them!!! The problem is mostly with the ultra shabby installation-they used this shiny/sitcky grout (or whatever it’s called) that’s laid in crooked/now thick/now thin rows, and since it’s shiny, it catches the light. Ugh! Plus the guys tore up the paint job so almost every room needs a paint patch up.</p>
<p>So take comfort, my terrible decision is much more expensive and enduring than yours!!!</p>
<p>Orchid, you have all my sympathy. I, too, special ordered a sofa and loveseat about four years ago, breaking every single one of your rules and adding the hungry toddler problem, too. I can’t tell you how powerfully (and ruefully) I relate to the bonding-with-the-salesperson aspect, but really all of them applied.</p>
<p>Among other problems, we chose our fabric based on a beautiful blue swatch, about eight inches square. When it all arrived, we discovered that the swatch had not been big enough to show us the ELEPHANTS in the pattern.</p>
<p>Nothing against elephants . . . . but NOT what we’d had in mind!</p>
<p>Anyway, not long after the pachyderms came to live with us, we got very lucky in that friends of ours (who honestly loved the fabric) were moving to a new, larger house, where they happened to need some extra furniture. So I happily sold them both pieces - obvs for much less than we paid, but oh it was worth it to get rid of the elephants. I enjoy visiting the elephants now. They look great in my friends’ house. </p>
<p>May you have a happy coincidence like that.</p>
<p>Elephants-how funny!!! That makes me recall the mostly gold couch my mom ordered from a mostly green swatch. She was not pleased-but at least there were not elephants. (I"m laughing here at my desk as I imagine your surprise.)</p>
<p>Haha - DH’s first NYC apartment actually had the shower in the living room. And smelled like a zoo. Shower penguins, loveseat elephants - they all would have been happy.</p>
<p>mini, your story reminded me of a commercial (I think it was for some sort of a car): two guys are driving through a neigborhood and spot a chair sitting by the curb. Next, they are shown in the car with the chair in the back seat, swaying to the music blasting from their radio. Then their noses start to twitch, as if they smelled something funny. The next shot shows the chair sitting by a dumpster. The guys are driving away, and the “Dah dah dah” song is playing in the backgound. </p>
<p>Our first “family” furniture piece was a free ratty couch which initially reeked of smoke. What else could we afford on a postdoc’s salary? Worked great as a cats’ scratching post, too. Years later, when it disintegrated, it was replaced by a leather piece (proudly made in the US, as the label said) which the cats totally hate.</p>
If it’s just the color, what I would do is to spend some time and find some slipcovers you love. Good quality ones will cost you some $$ but once they’re on, you’ll enjoy the new furniture and forget what is underneath. At least then you can avoid feeling pangs of regret every single time you look at the sofa.</p>
They look great in my friends’ house. </p>