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Living Solutions blog

Ideas & Inspiration

Sectional Options

June 27, 2012 By Living Solutions Interior Design

I’ve been doing a TON of looking for sectionals lately for our new family room. Our sofa is really on it’s last leg-like if you sit in it, it makes loud creaking noises and if you just happen to sit in the middle of the sofa, look out, cause you’ll need a crane to get you out of the deep hole of a sunken base!   
We also desperately need more seating for our growing family and for any entertaining we do or visitors we have. We’ve had family visiting this week, and most nights I’m the one lounging in my kids’ Pottery Barn little chairs! Right now, all we have for seating is a two cushion sofa that was our first purchase for our apartment in San Diego and a wonderfully comfortable “hand me down” leather recliner that we love.  
{Our first apartment together was a furnished rental…all we had to buy was the Walmart bakers rack-which actually lasted until this last move! And a Pier One papasan chair that I really didn’t care for! Especially after one of my best friends fell out of it while visiting due to the super unevenness of our old Newport, RI floors! I was always so worried for someone to actually sit in it for fear of them toppling over!!!}
I’m always a bit hesitant to just jump right in and use a sectional for a few reasons:  
  • Sectionals can get very large, very quickly in your home. What looks like just the right size in the furniture showroom can multiple in your living room.  
  • Sectionals aren’t super versatile or flexible. They really need to fit the space they are going in, because you can’t really move a sectional around in many different configurations in your room. 
  • Sectionals eat up the chance of having another source of lighting on an end table, say between two sofas instead of a sectional.
But, when the room and needs do call for a sectional, they really can’t be beat! They are comfy, seat a ton of people, are kid and family friendly when it comes to piling on the people and getting close and snuggly.

So on our list of sectional criteria are:
  • We’d like to seat more than just two {3 at the very max} people
  • We’d like to actually sit next to each other when watching tv
  • We want something that fits our room properly

I don’t know why furniture hunting for us is SOOOOOO much more difficult than when I’m working with a client!!! I tend to want to hash out every option and decision and possibility with my significant other. He, on the other hand, wants a short list of the top 3-5 selections that can be checked out in the matter of at the most an hour. It’s always a learning lesson for me, over and over again when we are working on a project or getting ready to make a big purchase. You would have thought that I would have figured that out by now, almost 15 years later!
It’s difficult, too, because like I’ve mentioned before, we are hard on things. So I want to get something sturdy and strong, that will still look nice in 5 years, but I don’t want to spend a fortune because we’re hard on things and it probably won’t look too great in 5 years :). My mom keeps reminding me that this won’t be the last sofa I get, so it may not be exactly what I would choose if I didn’t have 2 active little boys, a baby on the way, and us being home most of the time. But, it’s a lot of money! And like many of you out there, I don’t want to make a mistake!!!

Here are a few that have made our 
{or I should say MY} list: 

Lazyboy: Collins Sectional
Ethan Allen: Retreat Sectional
 
Ethan Allen: Cheshire Sectional {shown in a sofa}
 

Pottery Barn: Buchanan Sectional
 
Pottery Barn: PB Basic Slipcovered Sectional
{I’ve been going back and forth with slipcover vs. upholstered…another post on that soon :)}

I think I’ve narrowed it down to about 3. We’ve already checked out the Pottery Barn sofas and really liked them. I went back to Lazyboy to check out the Collins and didn’t like it as much as the Pottery Barn options. Now I just have to convince Jason to take a trip to Ethan Allen and then hopefully we can get this baby on order!!!

Do any of you have a sectional? Where did you get it? What do you love/hate about it?

 

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Hi! I'm Gina and welcome to the Living Solutions Blog! I'm a wife, a mom of 4 little kiddos and the owner of Living Solutions Interior Design. My family and I recently moved from San Diego, CA to Nebraska and this blog is where I share inspiration, design tips and ideas, projects and every day life! Thanks for stopping by!

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