In the old days, our parents would look in a store window or a catalogue and buy the entire living room or bedroom set as they saw it. The mixing and matching was done for them and they were guaranteed a ‘pulled together’ and trend-setting room.
These days, it surprises me that people buy only what they see in a showroom or online and don’t bother asking about custom options. For about the same amount of money and just a few weeks of waiting, you can have the room of your dreams by customizing furniture, lamps, draperies and rugs to a style and colour that personally suits you. The more you make something your own, the longer you will like it and the prouder you will be.
There’s a new generation that wants affordability and flexibility when it comes to choosing their own furniture, and they want it at a fair price. Fittingly, more stores are offering custom choices when ordering furniture. Here are a few questions to ask your furniture store when ordering furniture:
Can I change the fabric?
Most often the retailer has a huge array of fabrics to choose from, what you see on the furniture in their store is how they have ordered it. Don’t be afraid to ask about changing a fabric choice to something more suited to your taste.
Urban Barn, a large Canadian furniture retailer with more 40 stores across the country, offers 350 fabric choices, cushion styles and wood stains for their upholstered furnishings.
Are there wood stain options?
The most popular wood colour of the moment is dark espresso stain. It’s been around for six to eight years and retailers often choose it for their showroom models since they are comfortable selling it.
However, trends are changing and lighter wood tones are coming back in style — in particular, medium walnut stains and driftwood-coloured wood.
If you have cherry wood kitchen cabinets and want consistency with a wood table, then ask the retailer if they sell your favourite table in a cherry-type stain.
Can the cushion fillings be changed?
Comfort in a sofa lies in its size and type of cushions. If a sofa is long enough to lie down on, yet has hard-foam cushions, then it won’t be very comfortable. A puffy-type cushion is usually a piece of foam wrapped in a layer of cotton baton or goose down feathers. This gives support when you sit, but also a cushy feeling. For a very modern sofa, the cushions are often all foam in order to give a clean-lined look.
