- some suggestions in a cluttered and
confusing market
Visitors to our showroom, and customers
contacting us through our website, often ask us Sofasandstuff staff
for advice and help in choosing the most appropriate sofa for their
particular circumstances and décor. Key concerns are choice of
style for a particular decor, what fabric to chose, along with
concerns about build quality, value for money and the care and
treatment of sofas.
A useful analogy, and a tangible example of our
approach to the design and manufacture of sofas, is the leather
jacket I bought in the Kings Road in the 1980s, which I still wear
and which has lasted brilliantly, despite all the hard wear and
tear it has been subjected to over many years. The jacket is
exceptionally well made, it has a classic design, the leather from
which it is made not only lasts very well but improves with age,
and as a result it has given me huge pleasure and been great value
for money.
The same principles should apply to the
purchase and ownership of a sofa.
In choosing a sofa design, potential buyers are
subjected to a bewildering array of styles, including the many
different 'sofas on steroids' offered by high street chains and
advertised heavily on television and in national newspapers.
Whatever these sofas may be, they are unlikely to retain the appeal
and longevity of a design classic, in the same way that my leather
jacket is a design classic that has lasted.
But being a design classic does not mean that a
sofa has to be stuck in the past. At Sofasandstuff we design and
produce not only sofas which are design classics but we also take
existing designs and give them a modern interpretation, producing
design 'classics with a twist'. So, for example, our wing chair has
wings which are larger than normal and the legs are in a tapered
fifties style. The same is true of other furniture in the range. We
offer a classic Chesterfield but it is not in the traditional
leather but in linen, making a design that can sometimes seems
stuck in a time warp look fresh and interesting. Naturally we also
offer a full range of classic styles, styles which do not go out of
date and which complement a wide variety of room styles.
Sofas from Sofasandstuff are exceptionally well
made: a huge effort has been put into making them comfortable to
sit in, most covers are removable and washable, springs are high
quality, and the foam used is Duratech (which has a Gold Star award
from the Furniture Industry Research Association). All sofas are
also backed up by a 5-year guarantee.
Special attention is paid to ensuring that
customers are clear about exactly what they are ordering, and that
they are happy with their sofas when they receive them. We go
to the nth degree to try to get things right for every customer.
Once a customer has ordered a sofa they are sent a sample of the
fabric they have chosen, to ensure that their understanding of the
colour matches the exact colour being used. Customers who are
undecided about fabrics can select (online) up to 8 different
fabric samples to be posted for viewing at home.
Customers can also call a helpline for
additional information, help or advice when ordering, or visit the
company's first (non-high street) showroom - a renovated barn in a
beautiful rural location near Petworth in West Sussex, with other
showrooms opening in Hungerford and London (parsons Green) between
July and September. Add in free fabric protection, and the fact
that customers can return their purchase if they are not happy, and
it is not hard to see why more and more people are finding this
more relaxed, personalised way of buying a bespoke sofa at lower
than high street prices highly appealing.