A Sofa Comfort
Guide
When it comes to comfort, it’s all about personal preference. While we’re here to offer advice, we can’t tell you which style of sofa you’ll find the most comfortable from our range. That’s why we highly recommend you pop into one of our showrooms to test them out, just as you would when purchasing a new mattress. Some people prefer that sink-all-the-way-in feeling, while others are after a little more back support and a firmer seat cushion. What’s more, you must remember that when you try a particular cushion fill in our showrooms, the fabric you end-up choosing to upholster your sofa in will also affect the sit and feel of the seat cushions. Less malleable fabrics will always feel firmer in comparison to fabrics prone to stretching and slackening, such as natural fibres, including linen and cotton.
To remove some of the guesswork, we’ve created this handy sofa comfort guide! It’s designed to help you understand the types of fill in our seat cushions and get a feel for which one might be a fit. So, consider yourself Goldilocks and plop yourself down on as many sofas as you like until you find the one that’s ‘just right’.
It’s worth bearing in mind that our Product Development team has spent a long time working out the best fill for each particular style of sofa. While we do offer custom cushion fills, for instance, for people allergic to feathers or for those who have an ethical preference, we highly recommend sticking to the chosen fill so as not to disrupt the overall look and longevity of the sofa.
2. Soft - 100% Feather
Slightly firmer but still classed in the soft category are our full-feather cushions. Still super flexible and forgiving, they have a touch more support but still squish down perfectly.
Example sofas: Agatha and Grace
Both feather-wrapped fibre and full-feather sofas require regular plumping to maintain their shape and airy, cushiony feel.
3. Firm - Foam Sandwhich
Since most of us fall somewhere in the middle of the comfort scale, many of our sofas have feather-wrapped foam cushions, which offer a mid level of give. With plenty of structure provided by the foam, and more retention than fibre, the sprinkling of feathers over the top provides that soft, marshmallow feeling to a more structured seat cushion. These sofa cushions retain more of their shape when sat on, and require less plumping.
4. Firm - Foam Flex
Looking for a more supportive, firmer sofa with a crisp shape and design? A sleek, sophisticated sofa has clean lines and an elegant shape. Our Foam Flex cushions are the firmest of our cushion fills while still providing an unparalleled level of comfort. They offer more resistance in comparison to all feather-fill options and will retain their shape no matter how long you lounge on them.
An Extended Sofa Comfort Guide
Other things to consider:
Seat depth
Your height can affect how comfortable you find a particular sofa style. If you’re tall, you may require a deeper seat where your feet can touch the ground, whereas if you are shorter, a compact sofa with a shallower seat cushion may be preferable.
Scatter back or fixed back options
Again, this comes down to personal preference: some people enjoy firm uncluttered back support, while others like to prop themselves up with plenty of scatter cushions. Remember, a scatter-back sofa will likely be softer and a fixed-back sofa will be firmer. A traditional sofa usually has either a single or pair of back cushions.
Sofa arm style
It’s worth considering the arm style as this could affect how you use the sofa. If you’re someone who likes to rest their head on the arms of a sofa, you’ll want to consider styles with soft, rounded, padded arms. If this isn’t a necessity, you may want to think about slim, fixed-arm sofas that will potentially take up a little less space.
Types of sofa springs
The type of springs used in the construction of your sofa will impact how it feels to sit on. Again, the level of suspension you require will be a personal preference. A coil sprung sofa has a very different type of suspension compared to a zig-zag spring unit or a fish-mouth spring base. It’s worth coming into the showrooms to try out the feel of each type of spring unit to find out which one is best suited to you. We use coil springs in our popular Cartwright sofas, for example. Coil springs mean the whole seat unit is able to move up and down, free from the frame. We use zig-zag springs on many of our sofas, including Philo, and Henry. The zig-zag covered frame will have a firm front plinth on the sofa design. Finally, the fish-mouth springs hook over the front of the base unit, which means the front plinth has some give. Harriet is the perfect example of a fish-mouth sprung frame.
