<p>We went with chocolate brown, too, PackMom- although not leather. It’s a great comfortable color, and looks great with bright throw pillows.</p>
<p>We were able to find a new owner for our old couches through Freecycle- a young woman starting out in an empty apartment. Our weren’t good enough for the salvation army either, because they had a few threadbare spots. Funny, how once the kids leave, all the flaws in the house that you never noticed really stand out.</p>
<p>There’s a couple of places around the D.C. area (Upscale Resale and the like) where they will sell stuff on consignment for you. We bought the basement sofa from there…I think it’s leather on the seating surfaces and not on the back, or something so it was cheap. The other sofa is the house was practically my first piece of ‘grown-up’, not-handed-down furniture. It has held together really well and must be almost 18 yrs old. We will probably recover it one day…I notice a couple of places where the edge cord is fraying. </p>
<p>The old chairs that went with it had definitely seen better days…the coordinating fabric wasn’t as heavy a jaquard. When my dh <em>finally</em> agreed that they’d had it, we donated them to the teacher’s lounge at my daughter’s old school. The lounge had these awful broken-bottomed chairs that you could only sit in with extreme caution and to get out of them required the assistance of a second party! So even though our chairs were worn, the teachers were thrilled.</p>
<p>Ahhh… never buy a sofa from a catalog; specifically, never buy the ultralight sofas from L.L.Bean! [Ultralight</a> Sleeper Sofa: Ultralight Collection at L.L.Bean](<a href=“http://www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?page=ultralight-sleeper-sofa&categoryId=23814&storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&parentCategory=504184&cat4=504182&shop_method=pp&feat=504184-tn&np=Y]Ultralight”>http://www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?page=ultralight-sleeper-sofa&categoryId=23814&storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&parentCategory=504184&cat4=504182&shop_method=pp&feat=504184-tn&np=Y) I love the fabric (see the woodland tapestry fabric), and it looks fabulous and it is the absolutely MOST UNCOMFORTABLE COUCH you could ever sit on! (Sorry for screaming…) It is all foam, hard as a rock when you first sit down, then it sags as you sit there until you are perched unevenly with no support. And when you open it up to be a bed, there is no place to tuck the sheets at the top of the bed, and the middle section is slightly lower than the other sections, and the whole bed is as HARD as a rock. We would have been better sticking with the old futon - at least the futon part can be replaced or recovered. We ended up buying a $120 4" thick pad to go on top of it - which then has to be stored somewhere… So, it sits there in the study and rarely gets sat upon. Moral: I will never buy a couch from a catalog again, unless I have test driven it in person.</p>
<p>We got a new sofa after years and years of a futon in the living room. The criteria was that it had to be comfortable sitting up or lying down. We spent every weekend trying out sofa for what seemed like months. We ended up with a very boring beige ultrasuede, but it’s very comfortable. It doesn’t look bad with the other two chairs. One is a plain green sage color, the other a print with green and beige-y leaves. The only problem is the carpet which goes with nothing. Oh well!</p>
<p>These stories remind me of my aunt, who purchased enough Dorothy’s Ruffled Originals (anybody remember those?) to cover every window in her house—just before the style fell into complete disfavor:rolleyes: Thousands of dollars worth of sweet, hyper-ruffled curtains! She just kept saying, “What was I thinking? What in God’s name was I thinking?!”</p>
<p>Great narrative, mini! </p>
<p>Our house too is an eclectic mix of almost-antique (really! at one time we frequented a 2nd-hand store called Almost Antique) and consignment shop bargains, punctuated with computers and musical instruments, accessorized with books, magazines, and piles of music.</p>
<p>Our happy sofa buy was a chocolate brown leather one, big enough for all to sit or even sleep on, after years of making do with cute little loveseats inherited from here and there.</p>
<p>Ideally, one could go to the big store and buy an entire living room at once! and everything would match! but no one we know does that.</p>
<p>With rugs, however, I do recommend going to the type of store where you can take them home to see the colors in place and under natural light. NO WAY can you predict in the department store that that greenish Oriental will look like the Emerald Isle personified when it sits on your floor. Speaking hypothetically, of course. 
:D</p>
<p>When we built our house the painter made up some samples for the stain for the woodbeam ceilings. Nothing was just right but finally made a decision. Then proceeded to go out of town for a few days. The shock to walk in and find the ceilings looked the color of brown mustard. I about cried. Of course with a contractor husband who was on a tight budget and allowed no change orders. (to much work had been done to start fresh) I eventually got used to them and once we had the walls painted and cabinets stained and carpet and furniture the color looked better. I learned a lesson that I really needed to speak up and to never go out of town when having any major work done.
I have a really old loveseat and chair in my bedroom that the frame is made from plastic not even wood. It is comfortable and I slipcovered it with homemade covers over 11 yrs ago. We constantly talk about replacing them. The slipcovers are faded and thread bare. It was a pain to make them and I don’t really relish that task again. I am afraid of doing what you did. Making a purchase and then not liking what I end up with. So we still sit with the old.</p>
<p>orchid_2010, I haven’t read all the responses, but I thought of you today as I browsed a furniture consignment shop. We have several in our area, and they do very well. Perhaps you could consign your purchase and take it as a life lesson as you continue to look for replacements.</p>
<p>Good idea about the consignment store. Someone will be looking for a sofa the color of baby puke…it would be a pretty convenient color for new parents.</p>
<p>OP, I could’ve written your post and, while I’d like to say that five years later all is well and I’ve made peace with my sofa and loveseat, I haven’t. I continue to detest their fabric everyday. Being frugal like yourself, I haven’t wanted to pay for custom slipcovers and I haven’t seen anything I like on the ready-made website. Maybe once the last college tuition payment is a distant memory, I’ll put both pieces out on the curb. (Or maybe S1 will want them for his first apartment this fall…)</p>
<p>Not too long ago, I had an interior decorater tell me that “70s” colors were making a comeback. I listened to her advice and bought my father a pair of egg chairs, a real “classic” from DWR. I believe they were $5k a piece and both were in that weird 70s lime-ish green color. He put them in his office amid furniture that was mostly black. Of course they stuck out like a sore thumb so he decided to move them to his billiard room.</p>
<p>For me, I like bold colored furniture. I bought a gorgeous red living room suite and set it on top of a white rug with black graffiti print. Add some artwork, some mirrors, and a piano and thus my living room is complete</p>
<p>My husband is in the fabric business. When it comes to picking out fabric for furnitures and drapery, I am usually given 2 choices, and I am very grateful for it. </p>
<p>My H said sometimes what looks good on a small swatch often looks shocking when it’s put on a large furniture. I guess it also happens with cars. A car salesperson told us a lady loved this eggplant color swatch and decided to order a car in that color. No matter what how much he tried to warn her against it, she wouldn’t change her mind. A month later when she came to pick up the car, it was so awful she refused to drive it out of the dealership.</p>
<p>I have lived with my new “baby puke” sofa and loveseat now for 5 days, and I still don’t love them! Not that I figured I would. . .but our salesperson/interior designer called me yesterday to tell me that she is absolutely confident that I will GROW to LOVE them. I found this rather hysterical – how could she possibly know whether or not I will change my mind? Ha! I am already contemplating the slipcover solution.</p>
<p>The responses on this thread have given me so many chuckles that I at least have been able to cling to humor. Hey, as mini said earlier – I have furniture and a roof to put it under – plus, I have an absolutely wonderful family to sit on it with me! What more could a woman want? :)</p>
<p>Thank you all for sharing your stories!</p>
<p>I will say that there has not been a piece of furniture, bed spread or paint color in my house that I initially disliked that I grew to love. I’d be looking for a seamstress for slipcovers!</p>
<p>We bought a huge blue couch around 1985. Our neighbor at the time was an interior designer and had it made for us in a factory in Los Angeles, complete with solid blue synthetic material. Fast forward more than 20 years, and the poor old thing is showing its age. The cushions are saggy and shapeless and the supports under the fabric, which had held on valiantly for the first 15 years or so, are drooping worse than a tired willow. The blue fabric, however, is still in fabulous shape and there had been no problems with the frame. I figure since the wooden structure was obviously well made, and the size and shape are what we like, that I would get it reupholstered and have the suspension (or whatever it’s called) replaced. Turns out that no one reupholsters couches anymore, because I can buy a now piece of furniture for what it would cost to redo the old one. So we venture out to a local emporium that is having a loud sale on stuff.</p>
<p>Big mistake. Huge. </p>
<p>We end up with a smaller couch and a matching arm chair (to fill the empty wall in the family room). They are terrific looking – covered in brown leather with just the faintest hint of red, cool stitching on the seams, with big rolled arms that are just the right height. They look like something from the 30s, which matches our love of Shaker and Mission furniture. We weren’t in a hurry and I am deeply suspicious of “designer” (meaning “I don’t care if it hurts your back”) furniture. I spend at least a half-hour sitting and reading on the final candidate, which passes with flying colors. One day Men come and deliver the new furniture and take away old blue – a couch that has raised two children and provided me with hours of Saturday afternoon naps. The new couch is my domain, and is nice. WashMom settles into the chair.</p>
<p>All is well until our new furniture starts to sag. Sags fast. Sags deep. After about a year, the chair is OK, but sitting on the couch is like sitting in an leather-covered bucket. I’ve taken to putting a cushion under my back, just like Old Blue in the last years of his life. The discrete metal label on the back of the chair is Italian, and I’m thinking, “It’s not that expensive, but it’s not all that cheap, either, and I thought the Italians built good, stylish stuff.” I’m bummed. One day I come across the little care guide pamphlet that came with them, and find the “Made in China” tag. Nothing in particular about “made in China” but it’s not what I thought I was buying.</p>
<p>Old Blue went more than 15 years before the sagging became noticeable. I’d bet a dollar that the new furniture uses either cheap springs or nylon straps, which are fine for a little while, but then start to stretch like a bungee cord. </p>
<p>I’m deeply bummed. At least our new(ish) couch and chair still look good. They just feel bad.</p>
<p>I heard the Brady Bunch look is coming back…</p>
<p>It may or may not be worth it to you to take a class in upholstery. Usually the way it works is that you take in a piece of furniture…say an old chair…and over the course of the class you re-do it. This class will also teach you how to replace those straps under the couch…as well as tell you were to buy the material. There are still upholstery stores to be found, though they are indeed not inexpensive. But if there is an antique piece or something you just love, it still pays to have the work done.</p>
<p>anxiousmom, we’ve got that same ultralight couch, with the same stupid design which doesn’t let you tuck the bottom sheet in! I think we’ll get a featherbed or somesuch.</p>
<p>orchid, you definitely have my sympathies. My furniture rule of thumb is Don’t Let The Spouse Go Buy Furniture By Himself. Eons ago, we were about to have overnight guests, but we had nowhere for them to sleep. The spouse was given authority to go out and buy something. Big, big, big mistake. Well made sofa, comfortable to sit and sleep on, but ugly as sin. Beyond hideous. I still have no idea what he was thinking. Then we moved, right when friends were outfitting an apartment for some newly immigrated family members. The couch found a new, grateful home.</p>
<p>That experience ended up saving us a lot of money over the years, because I was too frightened of another expensive mistake to buy much furniture. We got to the point where springs were poking out of upholstery, but I figured better to risk tetanus than to spend $$$$ on furniture we’d hate. Then a colleague mentioned that she knew of an interior decorator who did nice homey work, and I realized that we could pay a professional and avoid another round of Furniture Regret. Definitely money well spent.</p>
<p>Has anybody checked out the google ads at the top of the page? Sofas, of course.</p>
<p>A long time ago I bought a beige couch. Beige! What was I thinking? Three kids, a succession of cats, a dog, and a beige couch. But the beige has never seen the light of day b/c it’s always been under a slipcover. The couch is also a weird shape, with high, thin arms and back, and it’s very deep. It’s actually a really good-looking, well-made couch, but it’s beige and because of the shape, ready-made slipcovers looked like I was covering an elephant (elephants again) with a group of heavy-duty tablecloths. </p>
<p>A couple of years ago, I got one of those stretch slipcovers at Bed, Bath and Beyond, in burgundy velvet, and may I just say…it looks FANTASTIC! It fits the weird shape like a glove. My friends all thought I had had it custom made. I immediately ran out and bought a second, identical, backup slipcover, but the first one has been washed many times now and still looks great. So I would definitely try one of those stretch-to-fit slipcovers (Surefit and some other manufacturers make them) before despairing. If you get it at a BB&B, you can always return it if you don’t like it.</p>