I Bought the Wrong Couch
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It’s confusing toshop for a couch online, thanks to murky supply chains, vague cleaning instructions, and misleading sponsored reviews. But even a sofa that looks great in a showroom — or a friend’s living room — can disappoint once the delivery truck pulls away. What works for them doesn’t always work for you, and what you thought looked handsome in pictures doesn’t always fit the everyday realities of life (with your three young boys or a roommate’s puppy). That makes it harder than ever to discern whether the couch a couple of FedEx guys just dropped off will turn out to be everything you hoped for or an expensive mistake. Here at the Strategist, we’ve got quite a fewcouches we stand behindabove all others, but below, to indulge your voyeurism (and a little bit of your Schadenfreude), you’ll find six cautionary tales from people who learned the hard way that the couch theythoughtthey wanted was decidedly not the One.
“When you sat on the middle cushion, you would literally just sink all the way down to the ground.”
We wanted a leather that wasn’t super light or super dark. We went to 12 different places andthis onefrom Living Spaces had the perfect color. We got a full set, so in total it was a little under $5,000. When you sit on it in the showroom, it feels super sturdy and looks really high quality.
Three months after we got it, when you sat on the middle cushion, you would literally just sink all the way down to the ground. And we’re small people — my husband is five-foot-eight and 140 pounds, and he’s the biggest one in the family. You would sit in the middle and your butt would be maybe a hand’s width away from the floor. The store sent someone to fix the bottom of the couch, they tried to shove square foam pads in there, and it still sank. So they gave us a replacement for the piece — you couldn’t just do the one cushion and you can’t flip them either. They’re all connected. And all of the threading was tearing; we would’ve had holes in that leather within a year for sure.
It started happening again after three months. We sucked it up for a while. But then my sister came over and was like, “You need to get a new couch, this one is so old and saggy.” So I tried to talk to the store again, and I just kept getting the runaround. I went in person and showed them videos and pictures. Even the manager was like, “Oh my gosh, that shouldn’t be happening.” But at the end of the day, it’s what corporate says, and they would not do anything about it.
Eventually, I put it out on the lawn for the trash truck to take away. It was maybe 13 months after I’d first purchased it.
—MJ Vanicek, photographer
“It’s just been a year of dread and fail and regret.”
My husband and I were looking to get new sofas. I wanted asectional; he wanted to make sure it had recliners. We were trying to find a compromise. We were drawn tothis specific sofabecause the fabric was beautiful and matched the color of our home. We sat down and thought we were falling for it. The salesman was telling us that it was selling out, there was low stock, they’d sold 15 of them the day before. It felt very intense and impulsive. We went home and we were talking about it, and we called and ordered it. We paid $5,000 and we have a total of five seats that all recline, with a center console where you can charge your phone.
The couch looks really plush, like it’s going to be this marshmallowy cloud sofa, but it’s actually so uncomfortable. The headrest is very straight, with barely any cushion. It’s like you’re laying down on a board when you’re being put into an ambulance. I’ll sit there to watch a couple shows in the evening, and then I’m done because my butt hurts, my neck hurts. The recliner seats turned out to be such a nuisance because I have to put my footrest down every time my dog wants to go out or I want to get up for some water. The two seats that we sit in the majority of the time are pilling and discolored. You can’t Scotchgard the fabric, either, and it stains really easily. If you’re wearing jeans, it takes on the dye.
We went into the store a few months ago and told them how upset we were, and there was nothing they could do because we’d kept it for 30 days. It came down to — my husband and I were both scared to talk to each other about it because it was admitting a major monetary fail. Neither of us spoke up soon enough, so we’re stuck with it. It’s just been a year of dread and fail and regret.
—Jessica Mullins, stay-at-home mom
“It was supercomfortable, but it was so ugly.”
I really wanted theRH Cloud Couchbecause that was the “It” couch at the time. I lived near a Restoration Hardware outlet, so one day I just popped in and I saw one right there that was exactly what I wanted. I could just grab it off the floor. Even from the outlet, it was pretty expensive — around $2,200.
Right off the bat, it was pretty obvious it was going to be ugly if you didn’t keep it all fluffed up and perfect. Literally the first time we sat on it and stood up we had to fix it right away to make it look good. I had it for about four or five years, and God, that entire time, if I didn’t have it perfectly fluffed, it looked hideous. It was supercomfortable, but it was so ugly.
Everything’s removable, and it’s all filled with down. So I had to take off every single pillow, and I would throw them on my floor and stomp on them, smack them, flip them around to make them not look so lumpy and gross. All the feathers were shifting away from where people sat in the middle. I would take the bottom cushion off and grab the long end and shake it so all of the feathers would move back to the middle, then go to the other side and do the same thing. After I’d fluffed it, I wouldn’t let anybody sit on it, which defeated the whole purpose of a couch. I was like, “I just stomped the heck out of that thing. Do not touch it.”
—Shaedyn Mann, dental hygienist
“I thought,I want a white couch,which was maybe not the best idea.”
I was looking for a sectional that was spacious enough to host people in my apartment but didn’t take up a ton of space. And I wanted something really clean and modern, so I thought,I want a white couch,which was maybe not the best idea. I paid around $2,000.
The couch itselfis comfortable, the size is good, but the material is just not practical — it’s viscose and linen. It would be good for show, for people who don’t exist in their homes. The brand tells you to spot clean it or professionally clean it. You also cannot remove the cushions; it’s just two full pieces that connect together.
My roommate’s puppy peed on the couch. I called a professional upholstery cleaner, andI had to sign a waiver that said I understood it can ruin the fabric if we clean your couch. I thought,Well, if the dog peed on it and I can’t clean it, then it’s already ruined anyway, so I might as well take my chances.The cleaning discolored the couch completely. It was white and now it has an off-white yellow tinge. But if you try to spot clean, wherever water touches it, it just turns into this big circle. I had a friend sit on the couch — we had just gotten out of the pool and her bathing suit top was still a little wet — and now there’s a huge circle on the couch from the water from her bathing suit. I’m like,Who in the design department thought using this fabric was a good idea?They don’t make a couch cover for it, and it doesn’t have standard-size cushions.
I’ve had it for two years now. I got white blankets to drape over it. I would love to switch it out and get something more durable that you can actually exist and live life on, but I invested $2,000 into it so I’m just using it until I feel like I got my money’s worth.
—Caitlin Rogers, hairstylist
“Even if a fabric claims to be a ‘performance fabric,’ a slipcover is the way to go.”
For full transparency, I collaborated with Pottery Barn and the company offered to give me a couch. We pickedthis onemostly because of the size and scale. For a family of five, it fit us all comfortably. At the time, they didn’t really have any slipcovered options, so we picked a performance fabric — Performance Heather Tweed, to be exact — because we have three boys.
We can wash the cushions and that’s great, they look decent afterward, but some of our cushion zippers have come apart from me constantly trying to maintain the fabric. And the arm rests and the whole back of the sofa where the kids climb up is a total disaster. There’s kid fingerprints, footprints going up the back. We’re in Florida, where it’s a very indoor-outdoor kind of living. The armrest is where the snacks will go, so there’s crumbs and spills. The sofa has a piping detail to it, and debris tends to build up in there, and it’s hard to clean even with a steamer. I found out you can do a slipcover just for the sofa arm, but then it looks like you’re hiding something, because probably you are.
I’ve come to learn in my design profession that even if a fabric claims to be a “performance fabric,” a slipcover is the way to go. You can always get a slipcover remade, but when it’s upholstered, you’re kind of married to it, and if it doesn’t last, it just looks really bad. We’ve had the couch for a few years now, and it’s one of those things where I’m like,I could spend a couple grand and get a slipcover made, but am I going to be happy with this long term?No, I’d probably rather just get a whole new sofa. My kids are still on the younger side, so I feel like I should wait to get a new sofa until they get a little bit older.
I mean, three boys is a lot. We also have pets, and we have cousins, and we host a lot for events. But I still think it should have been more durable than that. I’ll always buy slipcovers, even for clients, moving forward.
—Jamie Gernert, interior designer
“It mats very quickly, almost like if you didn’t comb your hair.”
I sawthe couchon TikTok and fell in love with it. I felt it would go perfectly with the furniture I had already, so I went to the store, sat on it, and ended up purchasing it for $1,300.
I knew I was getting a light-colored couch that would require some maintenance, which I was okay with, but I wish somebody had told me that the corduroy material doesn’t have good durability or long-term wear — it mats very quickly, almost like if you didn’t comb your hair. So a month in, I’m looking at the couch and seeing this material and it’s matted, and I’m like,How do you even clean this kind of couch?When I purchased it, they said I could take the covers off the cushions and throw them in the washer, but if you actually open up the cushions, the tab on them says, “Do not wash.”
I contacted the store to see if I could get the cushions replaced. They said they could send me new cushions one time, so I took the replacement, and after a month the same thing happened again.
I tried using Dawn soap, I tried to vacuum it, I tried using a steamer, but it did nothing for the material itself, which stayed very matted, and that made it look dirty. Now, it looks like it has a permanent stain; that’s the best way to describe it. I washed the covers in the washer, and it still had a taint to it. So now I vacuum and steam it once a week.
—Selena Hernandez, HR manager
Three couches the Strategist stands behind
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