Take Your Time When Buying A Couch

The couch is important. It’s where you veg out, watch the game, curl up to read a book and take a nap. So when you shell out for a new sofa, you know it has to be comfortable. And durable, but attractive, in a color of fabric you like and in a blend of material that won’t pill, and upholstered over a hardwood frame that isn’t supposed to sag, in a style that suits you and comes with a pull-out bed - if you need it.

Big surprise - it isn’t cheap.

Buying a quality couch at a reasonable price takes a good deal of looking around and some key knowledge about this piece of furniture. We called on two Lexington couch experts to share their advice.

Here’s what Stanley Hitchner, coowner of Merit Furniture & Design, and Loretta Leach, interior designer at Carolina Furniture, had to say.

* Expect to pay about $1,000 for a well-made couch, unless you find a model on the floor that’s on sale, Leach said. If you want a sleeper, you’ll pay $150 to $300 more.

* Patience is a virtue when buying a sofa.

Buying a couch on the fly is the biggest mistake consumers make, Hitchner and Leach said.

“They say, `I like it,’ and buy it without looking at anything else, the (couch’s) construction or anything,” said Hitchner, whose father, Cecil Hitchner, opened Merit Furniture in 1954.

Leach and Hitchner advised against settling for a sofa that’s marked down on the showroom floor. A custom order can cost hundreds of dollars more, but chances are you’ll like the sofa longer and will keep it longer, Leach said.

* Buy what you like and evaluate your needs.

Before you start shopping you must know what kind of sofa you need, Leach said. Will it go in a formal living room or in the TV room?

Will children be eating, drinking and playing on it?

“You want your best furniture in the family room,” Hitchner said.

That’s because the family-room sofa is the one that is used - and abused - the most, he said. You want that sofa in particular to be sturdy and to last.

But Leach said, “Any time you need to buy a quality piece of furniture, if you buy good quality and something that suits your personality, you won’t get tired of it and it will last.”

She suggested determining what style of couch suits your needs or personality.

Do you want dark colors or light? Loose pillows or attached? A sleeper?

If you like neatness and order, the sloppier slipcover look probably isn’t for you, she said. Ditto for loose pillows. If you’re single and living in a one-bedroom apartment you might want to sacrifice a little seat-cushion comfort to get a couch with a sofa bed.

“If it doesn’t suit you, it will never be a good investment,” Leach said.

* When it comes to the frame, remember these words: eight-way hand-tied hardwood frame. That’s the only frame worth having, Leach and Hitchner said.

“That’s what you want to look for,” Hitchner said. “The couch is going to keep its shape and support about any weight you put on it.”

To tell whether a sofa is eight-way hand-tied simply feel underneath it. If you can feel springs then the sofa has an eight-way-hand-tied construction. Keep in mind that sofa beds cannot be constructed this way because of the mattress and pull-out mechanism.

* There are different grades of fabric and their rankings vary depending on the manufacturer. So it’s good to ask about the grade of fabric and what natural and man-made materials went into making it.

Smooth man-made fabrics will pill much more than blended fabrics, Leach said. It’s best to get a blend of man-made and natural fibers, such as rayon and cotton.

Fabric that is 100 percent cotton will lose its shape, and because it isn’t colorfast, it will lose its color too, Hitchner said.

If you want a fabric that will absolutely last forever, consider one that contains a man-made fiber called olefin, the couch experts said.

* You have three options when it comes to the back of the sofa. There’s the tight-back sofa, which has no loose cushions - it is simply an upholstered back.

The two other styles are loose cushions and semi-attached cushions.

Leach said this is a matter of personal taste. But Hitchner advises getting a couch that is tight-back or has semi-attached back cushions. Loose pillows wear down, he said. Loose cushions require no skill to construct, Hitchner said.

“This is the cheapest way to make a couch,” he said, pointing to a sofa whose back was made of loose cushions. These unattached pillows are cheaper and easier to make than a tight-back sofa with springs to keep its shape and firmness.

While you’re examining the backs of sofas, feel the sofas’ sides, too. You’ll want to make sure the sides are padded, making them sturdier, and not just cloth, Hitchner said.

* Look for seat cushions that are sewn in fabric or ticking before they are placed inside the sofa casings. That prevents the cushion from slipping inside the couch fabric, Leach said.

The most common seat-cushion material is Dacron-wrapped polyester. Others contain this along with down, or are 100 percent down or synthetic down.

“If it’s real, real soft, it’s not going to last,” Leach said.

Get a couch with “as much firmness as you’re comfortable with,” she said.