If this guide teaches you anything, it is that you need to enter the furniture store with a tape measure and your home measurements in hand. Too often a sofa is bought, only for the new owners to find that it is too big for the living room.
Surely, that’s not too common? Oh, you would be surprised. Take a look at all the ways a sofa can be too big for your home and how to avoid getting stuck in one of these sticky situations.
When it can’t fit into your home
The first sign of trouble if you live in an apartment will come when you try to get your sofa through the halls. These are small and narrow corridors designed to allow optimal space to the apartments, creating quite the bottleneck situation. It’s common to measure and measure the room the sofa is going into only to realize that it’s getting stuck on the stairs up to your apartment.
There are options here. The first is that you should maybe leave the moving up to the professionals. A lot of furniture stores offer delivery services with the pros that know how to get sofas up narrow stairs without shouting “Pivot!” or damaging your sofa.
If, however, they’re really having trouble, they might have to take the arms off your sofa or anything else that won’t fit and reattach them inside your home. It’s something to remember when you’re moving out again.
When it can’t fit into your room
It’s essential when buying a lovely cheap living room sets that you check the measurements of the room it’s going in. All the details are online or, for some stores, which have a shopfront, there’s a chance of taking a tape measure to it personally. Be proactive. If you get this piece back home yourself or have it delivered, only to realize the space is smaller – or bigger – than expected, you’ll only have yourself to blame.
When your room feels too tight
It is possible to successfully physically land the sofa in your living room and still find that the sofa is too big. You’ll know you’ve made some kind of mistake when you are wandering around your living room, and you find you hit an obstacle, or you have to suck in your gut, or you have to sidestep it to get out, or the door bangs against it when you come in.
All of these red flags are signs that your sofa is too big for your living room, and you might need to do something about it. If it can be ignored, then you don’t need to do anything, but a sofa is an item that is supposed to last a long time, so chances are, eventually, it will drive you crazy. At the very least, it might make you feel a little claustrophobic.
Think about where in the room your sofa is. If it’s not backed against the wall, is that an option? If it already is against a wall, could you do a rejigging of the arrangement of your furniture? Could something be removed to allow your sofa room to breathe?
And remember…
All of this comes with an extra caution warning if you’re going for a corner sofa. You’ll have to make sure you have the room not only in length but in width. Measure everything before you arrive at the furniture store.
