january intentions

Guys, like a sheep I followed the influencers of the blogosphere and bought the Sven Sofa from Article. Not impressed. Not one little bit. I’ve had it for about two years now and it is flimsy and not very comfortable and looks absolutely nothing like the photo above. The back pillows have lost their shape and the seat pillow is as flat as a pancake. To add insult to injury, I bought the ‘apartment size’ which is barely bigger than a loveseat. You should see Keith, me and our two dogs that together weigh a whopping 144 pounds all wedged in the sofa. It isn’t pretty.

I put it on my monthly intentions post for January to continue looking for the perfect couch. My eyes hurt from all this looking. I have a highly specific desire for us with this new couch: leather (it’s best for us with the dogs), no back pillows because in my experience they always get crumpled fast, ideally a chaise lounge on the right side and big enough for all four of us to snuggle without feeling crushed. Above all, I want it to be well-made. I hate that I paid nearly two thousand dollars for a couch that is literally falling apart in less than two years. I seriously feel ill when I think of all that money. One final consideration: I don’t know how long we are going to stay in this house. We’re month-to-month now and we might not stay here for more than another year or we might die here given the cost of rentals in Oakland, so I’m not sure how much money I want to throw at this problem. In my experience, couch size and configuration doesn’t easily translate from space to space.

Yet, I really, really, really want a better couch. I love being at home and hanging with my family. It’s my favorite thing, but this Sven couch is seriously cramping my chillaxin’ style. Okay, now that I sound like the most whiny entitled millennial, please let me share some images of not-quite-perfect couches that I am liking online:

I kinda like this rolled arm sofa from Interior Define. It costs way too much money, but you can customize the fabric and also buy it with a chaise. It’s cute, but you have to wait for them to custom-make it. Momma don’t have time for that. I’d rather spend four months looking for a new couch to no avail.

I could go the route of tufted leather chesterfield, but doesn’t it look a bit…uncomfortable? I feel like if you tried to sit on that you’d just bounce right back off like a damn trampoline. Also, I feel like I’d need to bust out the Hugh Heff robe + cigar + smoking slippers. It’s just a bulky hubba hubba kinda sofa. Not my jam right now.

For some reason, this channeled leather sofa makes my heart go pitter patter. I’m all heart-eyed emoji over this guy, but it ain’t cheap at $2700 and I think it would just overpower our tiny little living room. It’s also from CB2, which I suspect could be about the same quality as Article. It’s just not the one.

Even though this sofa checks literally none of my boxes and it’s from my nemesis Article, I am smitten with it. Again, we’re dealing with a really small living room here, so we could never pull it off in my house, but a girl has to at least have an honorable mention, right? By the way, this photo is from the home tour for LaTonya Yvette on Cup of Jo and is super cool and inspiring. Highly recommend.

Given how hard this sofa search is going, I’m seriously tempted to go the Feather route. Have you heard of them? You can basically rent furniture and they have all the trendy stuff. Lord knows I need another monthly bill like I need a hole in the head, but it might be the best option for us in the long run since we really don’t know where our rental path is going to take us. They don’t have anything that ticks my lengthy list of boxes, but I check in frequently to see if they’ve updated their selection. In the meantime, I browse Facebook and Craigslist on the reg and try to literally manifest the perfect couch into my existence.

What do you guys think? Should I suck it up and deal with our current sofa or pull the trigger on something, anything? Any ideas that I haven’t considered yet??