So Last week, in a moment of zeal, I decided to post our relatively new sofa on Craigslist. We bought this pretty piece of furniture Summer 2014…
We liked it a lot, but I had two issues with it. It was a little too big for our relatively small living room; As you can see we had to shove the couch all the way up against the left wall just to get it to fit.
Second, we live on a wooded street and don’t get a ton of direct sunlight. The dark charcoal fabric didn’t help our dark living room.
We paid $1,700 (after tax) for it last summer. I posted it on Craigslist for $1,500 thinking no one would be pay me close to that since they could go buy the sofa brand new for just $200 more.
I Was Wrong. Because We Sold it
Not only did our sofa sell in a couple days. I sold it for $1,600. That’s right $100 more than I posted it for. If you didn’t already know… I LOVE CRAIGSLIST!!!
There was only one problem, I wasn’t expecting our sofa to actually sell. So when it did, we had a big empty living room.
Awkward.
We spent the weekend doing a good bit of couch shopping visiting the local modern stores and sitting on nearly 50 different sofas. We found a lot that we liked. But there was only one that we LOVED.
The Hess leather sofa at Room and Board was absolutely dreamy. Clean lines. Super supple leather. And extremely comfortable. But $3,800 for a sofa…before tax and a delivery charge…
HELL NO! So Here Begins the Budget-Friendly Living Room Couch Hunt
I now had a mission. Get a sofa very similar to the hess without breaking the bank.
Enter the Interwebz….
After doing a good bit of research on a handful of online furniture vendors (All Modern, JoyBird, YLiving), a random Google search brought me to Bryght Furniture.
I clicked through the furniture they offer and just about pooped my pants when I stumbled upon this beauty…
I mean look at this ghetto side-by-side photoshop I did comparing the Room and Board Sofa to the Bryght Sven sofa…
Pretty similar right?!
So my thought process was something like “Holy Crap, I found the perfect sofa. But what if it sucks?”
I mean, I can’t sit on the thing. I can’t call their customer service department and ask them about it. They’ll just lie and tell me it’s dreamy.
So what do I do?
First, I try and Google “Bryght Furniture Reviews” but there aren’t many. So naturally, I decided to Instagram-stalk people that have hashtagged this specific Bryght sofa. I click on their Instagram profiles and find that two of them have a blog. So I click on their blog and go to their “About Me” page. I find their email address and send them an email asking for a review of their sofa after owning it a couple of months.
Creepy? Whatever.
In the emails I ask them things like…
…Does it look as nice in real life as the photos?
…Is it comfortable?
…Does it look nice, but feel cheap?
…How has it held up?
…Anything you wished you knew before you bought it?
Fortunately, they emailed me back and both had glowing reviews and said they would absolutely recommend the sofa.
I Was Sold.
I bought the sofa online last Wednesday, knowing that if we hated it, I’d take advantage of the 30 day, no-hassle, return policy and be only be out the delivery fees ($98 total). It was worth the gamble.
So today (Monday), I’m sitting in my living room and I get a call from a truck driver that says he is 5 minutes from my house and has my couch. I never got a call asking to schedule the delivery so I find it odd that they were just randomly showing up to my house, virtually unannounced. But whatever, I was home so it didn’t matter too much.
Look at how absolutely monstrous the cardboard box is the sofa was shipped in…
It was kind of a headache breaking that giant box down in to a manageable size, but it was definitely well protected so I can’t really complain.
To get the couch ready for use, all I had to do was screw on the five legs (there is a center support leg) and we were rocking and rolling.
WE ARE IN LOVE.
It looked just as good as it did in the photos and felt even better than I was expecting. Our last sofa had a firm seat cushion, which I loved because it helps keep it from looking saggy and lumpy. Our Bryght sofa was right on par. A nice firm, yet comfortable cushion. The back cushions are poly filled so I imagine they will start to look a little frumpy in a couple years, but since they are zippered, I should be able to throw in some extra fill as needed down the road.
My favorite thing about this sofa is that it is full of aniline leather. It has a ton of variation and a nice patina (that’s the fancy word for leather that ages prettily). I don’t have to worry about scuffing or scratching the leather, because the scuffs and the scratches are part of the charm. BOOYA! What’s more, it will be much more wipeable than our old tweed fabric sofa. I’ll condition it a couple of times a year to protect it from stains and to prevent the leather from cracking, but that isn’t that big of a headache.
My Takeaway?
Overall, I would say I’m pleasantly surprised with my first significant online furniture purchase. It’s exactly what I wanted it to be, and nothing like I feared it might be. Win, win.
Is it as nice as the $4,200 Room and Board sofa? No. But at $2,400 cheaper, it’s definitely the better value.
And in case you are wondering. NO. I was not paid or compensated in any way for this Bryght Furniture review. In fact, I tried to get the hook up from Bryght in exchange for a review and they, politely, declined. Darn.
Have you ever bought a substantial piece of furniture online, without seeing it in person?
Was it what you expected, better, or worse?
Any other gem of websites y’all know about that I need to be filled in on?
