How to Choose the Perfect Sofa

When looking for a sofa that suits your home perfectly, it can feel like searching for a drop of water in the ocean, with so many styles, materials and shapes available. You may think you know exactly what you want, but once you set foot in a store or browse online, the options can become overwhelming. However, this guide will help you avoid the pitfalls that can occur during the decision making process and find something that is right for you and your home.

Size

What size sofa you need is probably one of the most important questions you must answer before you begin your search. To make sure your new furnishing actually works in your house, you need to know exactly how much space you have available. This requires thinking in depth about what you want to pair with your new sofa and how much space you need for these other furnishings. For instance, how many extra chairs will you need? Do you want a coffee table in the room as well? This all needs to be considered before making a purchase. Obviously, if you have a smaller room, a smaller sofa is needed. Although, it’s important to remember that in a small room, a sofa will be one of the main features, so its needs an interesting design to carry the rest of the room.

Patterns

Bold, patterned sofas can be visually striking and a great conversation piece but are a nightmare to match with the rest of your living room. If you haven’t got the best eye when it comes to decorating a living room, it may be best to stay away from bold patterns altogether and go for something more subtle. However, if you have got your eye on a more outlandish sofa, there are a few ways to incorporate this into your design and make sure your living room looks great. You could either keep the rest of the design simple, using a neutral colour as your dominant colour, or match the pattern across the whole of your living room design. The latter usually will only work within a more spacious area, as using a bold pattern across the whole of a small room can make the space feel tight and claustrophobic.

Colour

Sofas come in an immeasurable range of colours and shades, particularly fabric sofas. From bright primary colours to more subtle pastels, there is a massive amount of choice out there. This can lead to people just buying a colour that stands out when on display in store, rather than actually thinking about the colour scheme within their own living rooms. This can lead to mismatched living rooms, with sofas that stand out for all the wrong reasons. To avoid this try and work within a spectrum of tones and familiarise yourself with a colour wheel; colours that sit opposite each other on the colour wheel usually will work together. So, for instance, a light orange will work well with a light shade of blue. Perhaps most important is making sure your colour scheme suits your room itself as bright, bold colours tend to not work in smaller sized rooms.

Style

Style is very important in getting your sofa to match with your living room. For example, if your living room is designed with a casual, modern feel in mind then perhaps an ornate leather sofa isn’t the best choice. Likewise, if you are going for a more traditional living room, then an artistic, contemporary sofa might not work as well. To make sure you are matching up your styles, try and visualise how every sofa you see when shopping with look within your living room. Normally, fabric sofas offer a more relaxed, contemporary feel while leather sofas are normally for more traditionally designs.

If you have followed this advice and you still can’t find the best sofa for you, then it might be a good idea to design your own sofa.