Finding a couch

Over the last year and a half our pug Salsa has single handedly destroyed our couch. If you have encountered a pug you know they're instinct to go straight to lap is unbreakable. That they are so gross they swing round to cute; their drooling and snorting makes it impossible to resist. I think our couch has even grown to love him. But no amount of cleaning, airing or fluffing resuscitates life into these poor cushions.

Combine that with a not so well constructed frame... and you've got a very uncomfortable place to land at the end of a long day.

Now I have to caveat that The Couch was a 3 year-old hand-me down; I was psyched, I thought this, is a "quality couch". It will last a super long time. When the frame started to tear away from itself, after 2 years of living with me. I questioned the quality of this particular brand and I became dubious of the perception of quality furniture suppliers.

A few months ago Adam & I started the "we need to buy a new couch" talk. A Salsa proof couch...A couch that will last. I started to read up on "How to buy a sofa". I think the most important thing I learned is that retail stores buy from different manufacturers and what I needed to know was which manufacturer made the best product...for us.

Right around the same time there were a few great blog entries at treehugger about How to Green Your Furniture Guide and then another about Sustainable Furniture Council. We had decided we wanted leather (Salsa proof and super durable) Leather opens up a whole other host of quality assurances because the beef industry is so...creepy. After months of research I felt super comfortable landing on American Leather as a manufacturer; they offer impeccable quality and they are doing their little bit. Then the process of choosing a model started.

Last night we went to the Rhode Island Design Center to check out a few of the models they had on the floor to find one similar to frame & cushion of the model I liked. They don't have every model on the floor - each couch is custom ordered. We had decided between two models and two leather choices. Bob - our AWESOME salesman was working up our paper work and finding the model I wanted somewhere in Southern New England so we walked around the showroom. We were excited about our choice and joked about hoping the couch could be something we could pass on to Emma or Grace. We met back up and Bob presented us with our options/pricing etc and shocked us with, Cardi's (which RIDC is a part of) is having a 20% sale on all sofas but ended this night. He didn't pressure us and didn't mention it prior because we were just starting the process but 20% off is a ton of money to discount. We discussed and settled on getting the one we sat in. This is it without the studs and a much yummier color.

I so happy to be done and what's best is that I feel super confident in our choice!