I was thinking the same thing yesterday, while shopping for a sofa. I don't want another sofa with the big rolled arms and I really dislike the look of the pillowtop arm, though they are usually very comfortable. I could have taken a nap on one of the reclining sofas with the pillowtop arms - it was sooo comfortable, but I hated the look. So do you sacrifice looks for comfort?
I didn't see much of anything that looked like the magazines - even the leather was big and bulky looking - not what I want in my living room. I only went to the 2 stores in town this weekend. I need to buy sofas for the T.V. room and living room, so it looks like I will be going out of town to buy.

I agree!

It took me a while to find track arms or cut-away arms or even english arms on frames I wanted. But it was only online and in catalogs; not much but rolled arms and tradtional lines in stores. But I'd say all the brands have those frame choices, if you look at their sites.

Guess that means people are buying what they like, not what magazines show. One reason may be price. When you look at the price of furniture in magazines it is usually out of reach for most people.

If you want to be trendy, you need to be able to afford it. Every magazine has sourcing in the back. If you want those looks, they tell you what it is, what it costs and where to buy it.

Anyone who doesn't see what they want where they're shopping needs to find different stores.

Furniture is sold in so many stores, how do you decide which stores to visit and which to pass on? Are you going to the stores that do big advertising? They are catering to the masses, not to a person with more particular style or taste.

I feel bad that finding a sofa you like is like an odyssey. Dig a little deeper for some more local stores, let us know what happens. Good luck!

Mogater88 may be right about the mass-market appeal of those big rolled arms. But I've spoken to a number of salespeople in my quest to find a sofa with contemporary but not sloppy lines. They blame it on the buyers for their stores and are quick to show me contemporary models that I can special order. But I'm wary about purchasing a sofa without testing it out. And the number of decent furniture stores within fifty miles of my residence is fewer than than I can count on one hand.

Thats a tough one. And I empathize. But its impossible to stock all pieces, the lines are simply too deep. I can probably access close to 3,000 various upholstery frames - how can I fit that in my little 5,000 s.f. store??

What you do is this.

Look at the tailoring of a maker's line and sit in all the pieces from that maker that store has available. Generally speaking (very generally!) if you like the way they all sit, then you'll be fine ordering from the photo.

Not every store will do this, but ask before you buy if they will allow you to reselect should the piece come in and you are totally unhappy with it. Not a refund, but a chance to re-order something else. I found this is a fair way to do it, and only one in two hundred will take me up on it. The vast majority of the time, it works out on the first try.

All bets are off though if you order pink leather with white/black zebra hair stripes on the sides or anything that has a color not found in nature. :)

-Duane

Gosh, I sat in maybe 30 or 40 sofas in very good showrooms before I purchased a sofa. Some of them were very high end and expensive. Brunschwig, Baker etc. Some of them were not very comfortable. They didn't fit my body and there was no way I would have been happy ending up with one of them, and certainly not paying several thousand dollars.

No way.

It's a shame there are no stores near you. All I can suggest is to get in the car and drive to the nearest town (following research of course) where you can sit on as many sofas as possible in the style you like.

Call me picky but I don't appreciate expensive surprises.

rococogurl...I agree! I too have sat on like 30 - 40 sofa's and just as many chairs, and it is amazing how few were really comfortable. I could count them on one hand. I cannot imagine taking that kind of chance on a special order, from some 2" X 2" or smaller picture from a catalog. Not to mention waiting 8-12 weeks "OR MORE" only to find when your "special order" arrives that it is umcomfortable?!? And then there would be the "fun" of all of the phone calls trying to get them to take the sofa or chairs back if they were disappointing! We all know what a hassle that would be!

We would hear that it was a special order and that they could not sell it at full price, etc. etc. I imagine we would end up stuck with the thing.

Special orders, custom orders are yours, like them or not. Very, very few places would take them back unless there was a defect.

If you're going custom with an order and you haven't actually seen the piece of furniture in several fabrics (and usually it's not possible) keep it plain and simple! Fewer problems that way. There's more that goes into it then slapping fabric on -- I'm living with a very expensive mistake I made with a sofa I'd upholstered twice before. I don't know what I was thinking -- I was pressured to get it done and didn't seriously look at what I was doing. I went too fast and didn't think about it long enough. Fortunately it was mine.

But I would never, ever buy a sofa from a photo if I could possibly help it. I don't buy rugs online either as you can never tell the colors or the condition. Never, now matter how good the viewer is (and there are some that are really good).

For me comfort has a great deal to do with proportions. In the old days, people who made furniture did just that and not much else so they knew what proportions would be comfortable.

I have an armchair that doesn't look comfortable at all. But it is very old, it's made just right and it is something you can sit in for hours. Just go sit in a really good antique chair or sofa.

Don't get me wrong. There are many comfortable sofas out there. It's just a question of finding the one that's right for you. They need the "tushee test."

I bought a rug on line once. The color was not even close when it arrived. The seller said that she would refund the purchase price-so I paid a lot to ship it back to her. I had foolishly paid for the rug by check. She kept both the rug and the money. She never did refund the money. It was one of those things in life where you learn, and just need to let it go and move on.

And back to the original post, someone suggested that they are stocking those big rolled arms because people are buying them. I wonder if that is actually true. I walk through these large furniture showrooms, and there are very, very few other customers. Ever. I could count on one hand the number of customers in the large, beautiful furniture stores.

I find the stores depressing. First, what I want, is never what they stock. A bed for instance. There are perhaps 4-5 in the whole store. None of which are even a remote possibility. Sofa's might be beautiful, but uncomfortable. Or decent in comfort, but have those big rolled arms. Etc. etc.

Worse, A sales person moves in as soon as you walk through the store, just like a used car lot. They follow you around, and hover. They do not seem to be able to answer simple questions, such as which sofas on the floor are 8 way hand tied. Does the company on this sofa with the big rolled arms, offer other arm choices? Are any of the sleeper sofa's available in a love seat size sleeper? Each question they have to go look it up in a catalog somewhere in the deep, blue yonder, also know as the far back of the store. While I stand waiting, not sure whether to simply move on to other areas of the store to keep looking, or whether to wait by the piece he is going to try and find information on.

Many sales people at the furniture stores appear to be standing around for a good part of the day, waiting for the next customer, so it might be worthwhile to use some of that time learning about what they sell, so that they become the most knowledgeable salesperson in the store, and in essence the salesperson everyone will look for and pass their name on to friends. In our area, the sales people hover near the front door, waiting for the next customer to walk through the front door. I personally find it irritating and just want to walk around and look. If I have a question, I would like to then be able to ask for a sales person. At one high end store, I managed to slip by the front group of sales people, who were talking. So far, so good. I got to the piece I wanted to look at, and a sales person approached and asked who my sales person was. I replied that I had just a few minutes to look at something, and that I did not need the sales person that had been assigned to me two days before when I had been in the store. Within seconds, I heard that sales person paged, and she was hovering within 2 minutes flat. I was so annoyed with the way they do business, where it felt just like a used car lot, where they follow you around as soon as you walk through the door. You get this person assigned to you whether you want a sales person, or not. There they are!