For $1000 forget about getting a genuine 8 way hand-tied sofa. You will probably also have to give up the kiln-dried solid lumber and dowels. It will probably have corner blocks, but not as many as a higher quality sofa and they will be stapled, not screwed. Most furniture salespeople in the larger stores wouldn't know about the type of wood in the frame (or how it is constructed) anyway. Fortunately even a mid-priced sofa ($1000 - $1500) with a plywood frame and no-sag springs should last you at least 5 years if you get a good durable fabric. There are a lot of cheap very durable fabrics available. Most 100% Polyesters and microfibers will hold up for at least 5 years. Another thing you will probably have to give up at $1000 is leather. Most leather at that price is actually "bonded" leather, which is not the same and costs about the same as a good grade of vinyl. There are some genuine leather sofas imported from the Far East at that price level, but to hit the $1000 retail price the rest of the sofa is going to be closer to what you would expect from a $599 retail fabric sofa. For a sofa to cost $20,000 you are usually paying for a one of a kind custom-built piece. The difference between a $3000 sofa and a $5000 sofa is largely dependent upon the cost of the fabric used. As an example for a $1000 sofa the manufacturer is probably using a fabric that cost them between $3/yd. - $7 yd. (triple those costs to estimate fabric retail prices.) Going from a $1000 sofa to a $3000 sofa, in addition to a better frame and more expensive fabrics you are paying for more highly skilled workers who will spend considerably longer building your furniture. Above the $5000 range you are looking at expensive "designer" fabrics, and exclusive designs but the overall quality of the furniture may not be that different overall from what you will find in the $3000 - $5000 range. Europeans are far ahead of American furniture designers and manufacturers when it comes to upscale modern sofas. Unfortunately most of those cutting-edge designs are quite expensive. The popularly priced modern styles are usually Asian knockoffs of the European styles, but you won't find the meticulous craftsmanship that makes the expensive originals so magnificent. There are some American manufacturers who make good quality modern furniture but it can take some searching. Ironically most of the expensive modern-style sofas will have plywood frames and will not have 8 way hand-tied coils. Many of the interesting frame styles can only be created using plywood shaped on a computerized CNC router and cannot be done using solid wood. 8 way coils require a high sofa profile and sleek modern styles simply do not have enough room below the seat to accommodate them.

jellytoast: I have to respectfully disagree. When you want agreement or commiseration, go talk to your mom. When you want an honest opinion whether you like it or not, this seems to be the place. If I think your backsplash clashes with your countertop and you've asked, I'm going to tell you. It's what real friends do. snookums2: If the front wheels of a vehicle aren't "aligned", it will create excessive tire wear and possible shimmying. That's why this has to happen just before cars leave the plant. The machine my wife's company installed performed this operation. To answer my own question, I believe there is a lack of a sense of urgency with most residential remodeling. When GM shuts down for Christmas, they expect to be making cars immediately when they get back. They will brook no excuses about inspectors, workers, fire, rain, hail or anything else. As a contractor, if you expect to ever do another GM job as long as you're in business, you'll have them aligning front ends after shutdown, no excuses. Not so much with residential remodeling. Your customer is doing dishes in the tub for another month? Big deal. You'll still be in business after her job anyway, because all your competitors do the same thing. I'm driving about 2 hours one way to get to repair an oxidized rod in a countertop tomorrow. It will be done in one day. No excuses. This post was edited by Trebruchet on Mon, May 26, 14 at 18:25

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read through these posts and to post advice and suggestions and constructive criticism. I am taking all of it into consideration and some of it was not what i wanted nor expected to hear, but what I needed to hear. I feel as if a little more explanation is needed. We found a builder that we really like and everyone that he has built for has been really happy. He had several plans that we could look at or if we had any plans he could build whatever we liked. He has a gentleman that could draw and customize a home for us. We thought it was architect at first and the price was so good because we were going through him and he would then be able to have our house plan to use in the future. Upon our first meeting with the gentleman that was going to draw up of dream home so we could make it a reality, we learned that he was not an architect, or designer. He's retired now from 40 years of experience woking on/building homes and is good with the software. He is very kind and has been very patient with the many changes we have made along the way. However, we soon discovered that he really has no design ideas or suggestions. He just draws whatever we ask him to or whatever I draw to send to him. If we wanted something a changed, the standard procedure was to just make part of the house bigger, we had gotten up to almost 4400 square feet! If we didn't like the way something worked and asked for a change, he would fix that issue and cause 2 more. I got so frustrated that we are trying to build our dream home and pretty much the only person I had for design help was myself. Uhm, I really want someone with much more skill and talented and better taste to design my home. I know what I want, I just do't know how to get there. We have been working on this for 8 months. I got so frustrated that I gave up for 3 months. Our neighbors are using the same builder and they had difficulties getting their design as well. However they had found a floor plan that they liked and just had him make changes to it and add a mother in law plan. I firmly believe that we are his first truly start from scratch home. Again, this is the guy the builder sent us to to have plans drawn, not our builder. Giving him credit he has taking my very very basic sketches and turned them into something the builder can build from, but pretty much the design is about 99% me, not that I wanted it that way. Here is where I'm at, so you can see that he is doing all the builder type stuff. We don't want to be difficult, but we want a good design. We don't want the builder to think that we are difficult or indecisive because we just can't get there with his guy. I'm at a loss! Several people wanted to know the lot dimensions. So here they are: It is at the top of a ridge, has some slope to it and has a nice open are in the middle. Of course we want the house to sit about at the arrows part of the lot. There is an utility easement of 20 feet on the right side of the lot, but the utility poles are more like 30 feet inside the property. I really do appreciate all of your insight. It has been eye opening. I'll make another post addressing questions and comments. Sorry to be so long winded.

I bought my leather sofa's from Elite leather out of California. I live in Florida and knew nothing of this company but they had styles I liked, were made in America and have a huge custom color selection. The prices are more in the middle in the world of leather sofas. So far so good after four years. At first I thought I had a flaw in the corner of a cushion. They sent two new inserts. It smoothed out after awhile and I haven't had to use the new insert. I can't remember the ship time but remember it came early. I would buy from them again. At one point before pushing the buy button I heard Elite had a side cheaper line that came out of China. Before buying I called the company to be sure my sofas were the American made ones. They are. I never found out if in fact there is a side china link. I bought the Aero sofa in two different sizes for an L shape in my long skinny room. I feel your pain in deciding. When you look at leather sofa reviews even very high end have their sprinkling of bad reviews. It gets so confusing. http://www.eliteleather.com/products/sofas/contemporary Leather colors. http://www.eliteleather.com/materials/colors Types of leather choices. http://www.eliteleather.com/materials/types-of-leather Construction. Not high-high end hand tied but very good. http://www.eliteleather.com/our-craft/design An idea of prices. https://www.leatherfurnitureexpo.com/elite-aero-leather-sofa-and-set.html