Reupholster Or Buy A New Couch?

Because I live in a small Manhattan apartment, my couch gets plenty of wear. I spend lots of time sitting on it, and the minute a guest walks through the door, s/he sits on it too. I love my 15 year old couch and still get compliments on it. But the sofa has gotten soft in spots, and a spring is poking me in the back. The time has come to make a change.

First thought: Reupholster the old couch. Overall, it's in good condition. All it needs is fresh stuffing. But as it turns out, reupholstering a couch isn't cheap. The cost can run $600 and up. What a shame! Modern society throws out a lot of stuff because the cost of refurbishing is too steep. Not good!

And so, I bought a brand new convertible couch (see images). The new couch has several awesome characteristics: It is 3 inches longer than my old sofa, but more compact in width. It looks like a sofa, but behaves like a futon. Like a futon, it uses less space in its sleep position than my old couch with a pull out mattress. By the way, those pull out mattresses are rarely as comfortable as the new futon style flat back; and the new couch has a click/clack mechanism to easily convert the back into its sleep position. The old couch required brute force to pull the mattress out! 

Another great feature is storage under the new couch, which is big enough to hold plenty of stuff, though I don't plan on filling it up. I put a sheet set, quilt, feather pillow and a light cotton throw in the storage compartment. How convenient!

The fabric of the new couch is a cozy cotton, as well as, a pretty, textured design. The color is an airy neutral light brown. As you can see, the new sofa has dark wood trim on the arms and bottom. For anyone tempted to buy the couch, I have to mention that the back is unfinished, which visitors won't notice in my apartment due to placement. I would drape a quilt down the back if the couch sat in the center of the room. A bare back is shortsighted, IMO. How costly is it to put the same textured material in the back?

I'm still adjusting to the firmness of the new couch. Customers will either love or hate the firmness. There is some cushion, but you don't sink into it. Personally, I prefer a firm sofa over a soft one, since several years of butt traffic tends to soften a couch.

The new convertible couch requires a few simple steps of assemblage (Oh no, there are no  instructions!). I figured out how to attach the legs. The arms gave me more pause; and as it turns out, the screws (bolts) to secure the arms are too short by about 1.5 inches. So the furniture store is sending (please rush!) longer screws. At least I can sit on the couch while waiting for the correct bolts to arrive in order to afix the arms. 

I have never assembled a couch in my life, so if I can do it, anyone can. It seems to be common these days for new furniture to need some assembling. (Full service neighborhood stores are a thing of the past.) Watching a how-to video on YouTube certainly helps those of us with limited skills. You can learn most anything on YouTube!

Hopefully, the new couch will last as long as the old one, and I enjoy it as much. We sometimes cling to the familiar (I mean, some people are cloning their pets), but more often then not, change is good!

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