Trying to separate out quality wood furniture from cheaply made junk is as close to finding a needle in a haystack as you’ll get. Two pieces can look practically the same, but one will last a decade while the other will get wobbly within months. You can make it easy on yourself by shopping at a retailer like The Stated Home, which only sells well-made furniture made from real wood. But if you’re shopping somewhere else, here are the things to look for that will ensure you get something that will last: (more…)
Furnishings 101
Sagging Sofa Cushions: How to Avoid Them
Chances are, you don’t think much about your sofa cushions until they start to disappoint you. One day you glance over at your sofa and see that the seat cushions look like pancakes or your back cushions are full of lumps. The sad news: This can happen to even the highest quality cushions. That’s because most are made with a supportive core wrapped in a softer filling. These fillings compress and shift over time if you don’t take care of them. Now for the good part: You can keep yours looking like new with a little routine maintenance. (more…)
Types of Wood for Furniture
If you’ve spent any time on this blog or our online shop, you know that we think how a piece of furniture is made is just as important as how it looks. We’ve already covered the best way for a piece to be constructed with our blogs on wood materials, joinery, veneers, and finishes, but we haven’t talked a lot about the different species of wood. We’re going to fix that with this blog. The type of wood doesn’t just play a big role in how something will look or what it costs, but also how well it performs as a piece of furniture: how hard or soft it is, whether it changes color, and how long it will last.
Before we go into the common types of wood, we want to do a quick “Everything You Need to Know About Wood” lesson. That way you’ll understand what we’re talking about. (more…)
How to Buy a Sofa: 15 Must-Know Tips
Want to make sure the sofa you buy is comfortable and well-made? Take a look at the 15 most important things to look for while you’re shopping: (more…)
Comfy Sofa Beds: How to Find the Right One for You
Anyone who has spent the night on a standard sleeper sofa can empathize with the character in The Princess and the Pea who tossed and turned thanks to the lump in her bed. We’ve lost hours of sleep too, trying to ignore the bars poking through a too-thin mattress. There is a solution – sleeper sofas can actually be comfortable for both sitting and sleeping – but you need to know how to find the one that meets your needs. (more…)
Best Sofa Bed That’s Actually Comfortable
Prefer to not have a whole room dedicated to a spare bed? A sleeper sofa might be the perfect answer. While it isn’t going to be quite as comfortable as an actual bed (it doesn’t have the same supportive springs underneath), it can still provide a great night’s sleep if you buy the right one. The main thing to know is that shopping for a sleeper sofa is more than just picking the right style. There are also several different types of mattresses and configurations that affect sleeping comfort, sitting surface, and space planning.
The most important thing to look for when shopping for a sleeper sofa is good quality construction. You’re buying a piece of furniture that includes a mechanism and, as we all know, anything that involves moving parts has the potential to fail. For a quality piece, buy from a manufacturer that uses best practices in their furniture construction. Solid frames, well-made cushions, and top-of-the-line suspensions in sofas and chairs are an indication that their sleepers will be of equally good quality.
Hint: Sofa manufacturers don’t make their own sleeper mechanisms. As a result, different manufacturers often have the same mattress and mechanisms. Make sure the mechanism is from a reputable manufacturer like Leggett & Platt or Hickory Springs.
Now, let’s talk about the main types of sleeper sofas and some tips on figuring out which kind is best for you (for more about that, check out the second blog in our series on sofa beds). (more…)