Friends, I know couches are expensive and it's really tempting to believe you've found a hidden gem…read more- a local family of furniture makers, who keep costs down by cutting out the middle man. The showroom is modest, but full of enough delightful things to make you think "Holy s*$&, I could get a Restoration Hardware type couch for a decent price!"
However, I'm here to warn you away. Do not let those things tempt you into ignoring all the red flags. Is the company U Design It Sofa? Or is it what their Instagram account says - "Local Sofa"? If you do some digging with their business address (11679 Sheldon St #1504, Sun Valley, CA), or search for John's business number (818-381-6338), you'll find numerous business names they've used over the years. When the complaints get loud enough, they rebrand and continue. They do not stand by their work, and I'm out over $2k because of it.
Bought a couch and a chair from them, went through the whole design process with John, who was gruff but also charming. Paid the deposit, when the furniture was ready, John came and delivered it himself. Beautiful work. Beautiful!
Quickly things went sour, though. The couch stuffing is wildly uncomfortable, and worse, the stitch work was miserable. Buttons started popping off two months later, despite very light use (pandemic era, no guests to sit on couches type of use, here). After TEN buttons came off, I contacted John, but we were in the middle of lockdown. He said he wasn't sure why the string wasn't holding, maybe they used the wrong kind (??!!??), and he'd come repair it when things cleared up. Totally fine, understood, no big deal.
Had to harass him to come do the work, but he came himself and restitched the buttons on. Once he was done, I came to look and was horrified to see he'd loosely attached the buttons with thick white string to the couch. The style is tufted, but he didn't pull the buttons tight, so they just sort of flop around on the surface, like weird ornaments. You can't sit on them. Some have popped off again.
Before he left, I asked him why he didn't make the stitches tight so that they tufted, like they were supposed to. He got very mad and yelled "That's the best I can do! Okay?" Without another word, he stomped out of my home and left. I tried to contact his daughter, who runs the marketing for this business through social media, but they promptly blocked me and deleted all of my messages.
So now I have a 2k couch and chair set, in the tufted Chesterfield style, missing half it's buttons.
Run, don't walk. This ain't it.