couch Archives - Lazy Man and Money

I couldn’t help the pun (which I think I subconsciously from a friend).

Last week, I presented our couch conundrum. We were looking to choose between 3 sectional and one sofa/loveseat pair ranging from $999 to $2800. Our biggest need was something durable and easy clean due to the heavy wear and tear of a dog sitting business and two toddlers. Our research said that leather was the best answer (fabric was not).

Another requirement was a console with a cup holder. It sounds silly, but I’ve spilled many drinks attempting to balance them in a corner of the couch.

Two options came from Bob’s Discount Furniture and two from Jordan’s (I think mostly a New England chain). Friends and family suggested that Jordan’s had higher quality. However, their prices are often $4,000 and up, while Bob’s can be less than half that. I looked for a couple of reviews of Bob’s and found a ton of YouTube videos from customers showing the furniture falling apart in a couple of years. The two from Bob’s were eliminated.

Before we had eliminated Bob’s, I had made the leap to thinking that a traditional sofa/loveseat combo would be the best fit for the room. It would give us flexibility to move them around and I think it just “fit” the room better. (You’ll see when we get to the pictures.)

Readers also gave me some advice not to buy the floor model… especially because we were looking at getting power recliners. It makes sense that the motors will have years of use on them. The couches from Jordan’s that in our price range (around $2000) were in the clearance section. They were floor models.

So we back to the drawing board.

I had read good things about Raymour and Flanagan on a thread about Bob’s. My wife said there was one close and a Cardi’s near that. (Cardi’s is a popular Rhode Island chain, more on that later). We went to Raymour and Flanagan and long story short, every design had one major flaw, wrong fabric, no console, didn’t pass the wife’s sitting test, except for one. Of course that one was around $4000, but it had motorized headrests and adjustable lumbar support (I hadn’t seen this). Unfortunately price eliminated it (unless we wanted to save a lot longer).

We decided to pop into Cardi’s, because it was right there. I eliminated Cardi’s early in the process because their website is the worst. It could be upgraded by having flying toasters and excessive use of the blink HTML tags. Truthfully, the website looks fine, but trying searching for leather sectionals or power-reclining sectionals. You can’t. You can only look at a page like this with 12 images and really helpful descriptions such as “2-pc sectional” (sarcasm). Then you have to click on each one to bring up the page with that couch. Then you have to click on the details on that page only to be disappointed that it comes in polyester. You have to navigate dozens of pages with dozens of images that would take hours and hours.

I’m getting mad even typing that last paragraph, because EVERY OTHER furniture company offers simple filtering options so that you can look at the 4-7 that fit what you are looking for.

However, as we walked in, we found that nearly every couch was almost a perfect fit. We went from being too picky to find one couch to having too many options. We narrowed it down to two couches and then went home to sleep and think about it. I wanted to pass along the two couches to friends and family and see what they thought, but as the salesperson explained:

“The website is really terrible. We have a full-time person whose job it is to simply look though the website when we need it. I suggest you take a picture and use the search functionality for the SKU number.”

When I got home the search for SKUs of either couch came up with no results.

(Seriously, Cardi’s if are reading this, please reach out to me. I’m local and I developed websites for billion dollar companies that were much more usable. I realize the huge amount of irony in writing that your website is the worst in a blockquote that can barely be read by human eyes. Might as well have a rock fight in my house built of very thin glass. I’m working on slightly small scale and budget.)

Two days later we went back and pulled the trigger on a new couch. I’m writing this article from it right now. Here were the two options we considered:

Lazy Man’s Preference

There was a sofa/loveseat combination with a cup-holder console in the loveseat side. All five seating areas (even the middle of the sofa) were on independent electric recliners. No one would fight for the reclining seat and we’d have the most flexibility when it came to rearranging furniture.

The console was especially nice with a real power outlet (very rare) and a couple of USB (common). The power outlet would come in handy for charging my computer or a blender (don’t judge me for making frozen drinks in my oasis!)

Price: $2900 – It’s more than we wanted to spend, but our expectations needed to be reset once we eliminated Bob’s Discount Furniture.
Financing Promotion: Interest-free financing for 72 months.

Energy Girl’s Preference

A traditional sectional that she really liked the feel of. It had classic good looks and two recliners, one at each end. However, it would cover-up a window, because it isn’t a perfect fit.

The console was terrible with only USB and place to plug-in a blender for making frozen drinks.

Price: $2200 – That’s as good of a price that we had found on real leather. It was a close-out, clearance, down from their MSRP (probably inflated) $3900 and from the typical $3000 price it sells for.
Financing Promotion: Because it was a clearance, it was only eligible for interest-free financing for 12 months.

Because this is a money site and I like to get mathy, one of the first things I tried to do was adjust the financing options. There’s value to us to extend the payments interest-free as long as possible. I just didn’t know what that exact calculation was. Oddly, no one on the internet had thought to build a calculator for something like that (or at least my half hour of searching came up empty which is very rare).

I decided to work it backwards. If inflation is 3% a year (or if I could get that return on my money which I think is reasonable) $2135 would become the $2200 price of the wife’s preference in one year. Given the same inflation/return projection of 3%, I would need only $2425 to get to the $2900 price of my preferred couch in 6 years. Thus I figured the real cost adjusted for financing to be $2135 vs. $2425.

Financing narrows the gap.

So it comes down to my awesome 5-recliner, awesome console, flexible room furniture vs. the 2-recliner, non-blender-friendly, unyielding behemoth that my wife liked for a little less money.

Naturally, this happened:

Couch In Home — Neither creepy alien dog nor terrible picture-taking cell phone is included.

How did that happen? My wife used a simple combination of logic and emotion in a powerful argument. With the sectional we had for years, we’d all be together. A dog or a kid may sleep on our lap. My wife actually used our dog as a comfy pillow earlier tonight (he didn’t mind). It’s a family being together.

I realized that if we went with my choice, I would be in the loveseat separated by a console (which I guess makes it just a “seat” as there isn’t much love in it any more). It’s great for working late at night, but poor for being close together.

Game. Set. Match.

Within a minute of her saying that we were filling out the paperwork. It wasn’t for a few hours that I realized that couch we settled on was almost the same in style and in price to the 2nd option at couch conundrum. This is the couch that readers overwhelming suggested was the best fit given the preferences I stated. Score 1 for the readers and I thank you for all your feedback. It was extremely helpful

I’m going to end with some pictures simply because I have them and don’t know where else they’d fit.

Couch in the showroom.

Some details on the price tag:

Note that it is vinyl on some sides and back, which saves money vs. 100% leather everywhere.

Our couch is a dozen years old and it has been decided that it is time to move on to a new couch. (That sentence was worded that way because I’m in a denial. Objectively, my wife is right, but there’s no urgency.)

Our current couch is a large microfiber sectional. We have a sizeable living room and a family of five (yes our dog counts in this case). We’ve decided to move away from microfiber. Our dog sitting gig is doing well and we need something that wipes clean easily. Microfiber requires our upholstery cleaner. Even worse, you can’t clean a spot because the cleaned area then looks cleaner than the rest of section. Thus we’re looking for some kind of leather or leather-like material.

I also love gadgets in my couches. We currently have three recliners and a storage console. That was high-tech 12 years ago, but nowadays the consoles have USB-power and cup-holders in addition to storage. The recliners also seem to be powered much of the time. I like that because I fear I’ll chop off a kid’s finger or something in snapping it open and closed. Powered seems much safer. I even saw one couch with a built-in removable tray, that would be perfect for a plate of food or maybe a light-weight laptop. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find another couch with that option.

My wife likes the idea of a chaise lounge to be part of the configuration as well.

This may sound like a lot to ask for, but in looking at two stores we found everything we were were looking for – more or less.

There didn’t appear to be a clear-cut winner and hence the “couch conundrum”. I’m going to explain four of the finalists that caught our eye, give you some pros and cons, and ask for your feedback. I’m listing them in order of most expensive to least expensive.

The Works

Bob’s Furniture has something called the Atlas, which is everything we were looking for (except for the black swan tray piece in the console). See the image (click for a larger version.)

My wife sat in the couch and said that it was “the one.” She felt that the couch picked her like Harry Potter’s wand. I couldn’t disagree, it had a great console (USB, cup-holders) and power recliners. Even the chaise reclines to be almost a bed. However, it is $2800 when shipping is included (other stores ship for free.) Friends and family say Bob’s Furniture is of cheaper quality.

Pros: Meets everything we are looking for. Harry Potter’s wand for my wife.
Cons: Expensive ($2800), no deal/promotion, shipping charges, testimonials of lower-quality.

The Value

Jordan’s Furniture has a discount area with the couch on the right (click for larger). (Yes, there’s a lost cell phone on the couch, we tried to find the owner.)

It doesn’t have the chaise lounge, but it does have the main features of the console (USB, cup-holders) and power recliners. This couch normally costs $4800, but this is one of 3 we saw on clearance for $2100… and that includes shipping. These find themselves in bargain bin, because there is a new color for 2017. They might have been floor models, but they seem great. This was my wife’s first choice before we saw the Atlas above with the chaise.

Jordan’s Furniture by all accounts of family and friends has better quality furniture than Bob’s Furniture. Typically you pay a higher price for it, but not on this particular piece.

Pros: Most everything we are looking for, big deal/promotion, testimonials of higher quality.
Cons: Expensive ($2100) and a compromise.

The Easy Bargain

Jordan’s Furniture had another couch in the discount area that caught our eye. (We eliminated the ones in their general area as $4000+ is not what we are looking to spend for a couch.

I’m not including a picture, but it was very similar to the couch above. It lacked a console (and hence no cup-holders or USB) and it was made of microfiber – the one thing we wanted to avoid. However, it did have power recliners. The price is right at $1300. There’s only one of these. We could go back tomorrow and find that it is gone.

The “easy” part of bargain is that it has free shipping. This make more sense when we get to the “difficult” bargain below.

Pros: Good Price ($1300), power recliners, good deal/promotion, testimonials of higher quality.
Cons: Microfiber, lacking many features were were looking for, limited availability.

The Difficult Bargain

Bob’s Furniture has/had a floor model of their Marco power recliner and loveseat for sale at 50%. That’s a $2000 sofa/loveseat combo for $999. It has most of the features of the $2100 of “The Value” above, power recliners, console (USB cup-holders, storage, etc.). It isn’t a sectional, but that might be a benefit as we could split them up if we wanted to move re-arrange the room.

The biggest problem is that Bob’s doesn’t offer shipping of any kind. You need to haul it out yourself. This would likely mean renting some kind of hourly truck from Home Depot… and driving it an hour to our house. I’ve never done anything like this. I don’t know how cheap or expensive this is.

Pros: Great price ($999), most everything we are looking for (except chaise)
Cons: Not a sectional, logistics of transporting it, limited availability, testimonials of lower quality, floor model that likely has miles on the motor already.

My wife brings up a great point that if we are going to have something for 12 years (or more), we want to be happy with it. I’m a strong believer in that as well. However, I don’t want that to be an excuse to write a blank check. Money is a finite resource.

If we went with the cheapest option, we could use the savings for other projects around the house that we’d love to do. That money would buy that television I’ve been writing about for 2 years now (not that we would, but we could).

As tempting as it might be to go all-in on the Atlas, there’s also no reason to rush on it. There’s no promotion and quantities aren’t limited. All the option have some kind of “buy now” component to make our money go further.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

The Couch Conundrum Part 2 (The Next Section-al)

The Couch Conundrum (Call for Help)