subject: Think you Need a Small Sofa? -- Custom-built Ready To Assemble Sofas Offer New Choices [print this page] Think you Need a Small Sofa? -- Custom-built Ready To Assemble Sofas Offer New Choices
RTA furniture, also known as Ready-to-Assemble or Self-Assembly furniture, represents a significant percentage of total wood furniture sales. Ready-to-Assemble sofas, on the other hand, make up only a very small percentage of total upholstered furniture sales, somewhere around 2%. There are recent indications, however, that RTA sofa sales may be expanding into new markets.Since the earliest days of RTA sofa development, manufacturers have concentrated on one primary goal -- Make it cheap! Most RTA sofas are made overseas. As a result nearly every RTA sofa made shared certain characteristics.They are small in scale. Light weight, cheap lumber is used, primarily plywood, particle board or chip core. Cheap foam is used. The average life expectancy of these products is generally 2-3 years so why waste money on foam that will last longer.Many of these companies save money by eliminating the springs that are used by conventional sofa manufacturers to add comfort and extend cushion life.Packaging is critical. The smaller and flatter the box, the lower the shipping costs.Fabrics, of course, are generic. They are chosen for their low cost and the colors selected are those that are felt to be least offensive to most customers. Very few color options are offered.The new entry into the RTA sofa marketplace is by American manufacturers offering custom-built RTA sofas, emphasizing quality materials and service, rather than low prices.Rather than selling through mass merchants these manufacturers market custom RTA sofas directly to the consumer.American-made custom-built RTA sofas and sleepers are now available in many different styles and sizes with heavy-duty kiln-dried solid hardwood frames that come with lifetime warranties.In the history of RTA sofas, innovation had always been driven forward by one primary goal -- make the product cheaper. That means you make compromises. You design your product so that it fits in the flattest possible box to save shipping costs, even if that means that the assembly will have to take longer. And it means that you use cheap foam, because good foam is expensive and when you are a large retailer who is paying the manufacturer only $200 - $300 for the sofa, that doesn't leave much room for the manufacturer to use good quality foam in his product. A cheap foam will generally last 2-3 years. Premium quality HR foams will last up to 10 years. It doesn't make sense for the low-price RTA sofa manufacturer to use a 10 year foam because the rest of the sofa isn't going to last nearly that long. Even super-premium down-blend and spring-down cushions are available.Dozens of different fabrics are offered in various grades. Generally the higher priced fabrics are the better sellers.Many other custom options may also be available such as slipcovers, special sizes, customer's own material and many others.Production and shipment of these custom orders can take as little as 4 weeks. Because the furniture is shipped unassembled, it can be delivered by UPS or FedEx in addition to the normal common carriers.People who buy furniture for their RVs or boats quickly discover that it is difficult to find a sofa or sleeper that will fit through their narrow entrance ways.However, consumers purchasing sofas or sleepers for their homes or apartments are often completely unaware that, if they have a door or stairway that is only slightly smaller than normal, their carefully chosen furniture may not be able to fit into the room.Older homes very often have narrow doorways, stairs or halls, but even a single sharp corner leading into a small apartment or basement family room can mean that the beautiful sofa you have spent months picking out may end up going right back to the store.If he sofa doesn't fit, you get to begin your furniture shopping all over again. Most people in this situation will start looking for a small sofa, maybe one of those apartment size sofas that are advertised all over.The vast majority of consumers in this position do not realize there are new options today that did not exist only a few years ago.When consumers think of RTA sofas, they nearly all think of IKEA-type products, low-priced, flimsy furniture. After driving your couch-in-a-box home you can then have hours of fun assembling it with your screwdriver, hex wrench and multi-language instruction book.Almost nobody realizes that there are now other choices, that there are actually good quality, comfortable RTA sofas that can be customized to their exact requirements and that will still fit through the narrowest doors and stairways.As an added bonus there are even custom RTA sofas that can be assembled in less than 15 minutes without using any tools. (There is actually a video available on YouTube showing an 8 year old assembling a custom-built self-assembly sofa by himself in less than 4 minutes.)Equally amazing is that the high quality custom-built RTA sofas do not cost much more than most of the low quality, small scale plywood stuff. There are custom-built RTA sofas with solid wood frames, 10 year HR foam cushions and high quality fabrics costing around $750, including free shipping (within the U.S.) Of course you can spend a lot more than that if you choose some of the available options.So, if you have a space problem and have not considered a Ready To Assemble sofa because you wanted something nicer looking and with better quality and more fabric choices, it may be time to reconsider.There has been some real innovation recently in the RTA upholstered furniture industry -- with American companies leading the way.And the innovation is continuing. It is universally acknowledged within the furniture industry that 8 way hand-tied springs are the most comfortable type of suspension system available. The technological challenges of including an 8 way hand-tied spring unit in an RTA sofa are formidable. But I expect to see them available before the end of the year.
