The Woeful State of Furniture Retailing in the Twin Cities (And La-Z-Boy sucks)
Can anyone explain the plague of bad furniture stores in the Twin Cities to me? Slumberland and Hom furniture have been somewhat tolerable…you can maybe find one decent piece in their stores once in a while. But what’s with Ashley? These places are popping up around town faster than WalGreens. Does the world REALLY need that many poofy sofas and dear-antler chandeliers?
*sigh*
So, we’re finally finishing our basement and we’d like to by a nice, ‘real’ sofa. A sectional. To put in front of our new TV (my reward for finishing the basement). The catch? We hate poofy. We’d like modern. And my ‘modern’ I mean simple lines…not big-box-furniture-store’s definition of modern which seems limited to 80’s era Miami style.
That doesn’t leave us a whole lot of options. There’s DWR (overpriced). Ikea (nicely priced, but, well, it’s Ikea). There’s Room and Board (nice quality, selection is good). And…umm…what else? Anyone have any suggestions? Ideally places that forbid poofy sofas.
I finally found a decent looking sofa at La-Z-Boy.com of all places. But I’m finding that La-Z-Boy isn’t a company that really cares about selling products.
For starters, look at their furniture view on their site:
That’s a full size screen shot. Nothing like shopping for large pieces of furniture by looking at mini-icons. Anyways, see that blue one on the bottom? The Valerie? That’s the one we thought we’d like to get. It has an outside corner…a rare thing in a sectional that would fit our room perfectly.
I email La-Z-Boy asking where I could see this sofa. Their response? “Sorry, we don’t keep a database of who has what in stock”. Oh. Gee. Why would they want to assist potential customers? So, I go to their online store locater and start calling around. Turns out that these just aren’t in stock anywhere outside of NYC. NYC? Ugh.
Oh well.
Anyhow…if anyone has some leads on non-poofy sectional sofas in the Twin Cities retail landscape, let me know! If you’ve ever sat in a ‘Valerie’, let me know what your back side thought of it! If I’m missing out on some great secret furniture places in town, lemme know!
5 Comments
I think I have just the place for ya. Dania Furniture in Roseville. It’s where a Room n Board used to be. Great modern stuff, but a very diverse collection. Also, diverse as far as prices go. High to low.
We wandered in quite accidentally one day and wanted to buy everything in the joint. I like modern stuff, but wouldn’t necessarily want to furnish my whole house with it usually, but their stuff was all really accessible while being whimsical and striking. Do check it out.
Thanks, Greg. I’ve actually been to Dania. I felt it was a mixed bag. I think there are some nice pieces there, but they also sprinkle in the odd 80’s era Miami Vice feeling pieces which always throws me off (and, which, oddly, they keep off their web site).
I should give the place a second chance, to be fair.
Did you try Ligne Roset? They are high-priced, but have beautiful, beautiful stuff.
I ended up getting a modern, reasonably priced couch from Mitchell Gold & Bob Williams. Since we don’t have them here in Minnesota, I ended up buying it while on vacation in Boston. They have this sectional series called Dr. Pitt (see their website) that seems really versatile.
Ligne Roset is on our list of places to check out this weekend…probably a tad large and pricey for this particular space, but worth a look. I did find a couple of options at Macy’s Home Store in Edina this week, too.
We also found the Todd Oldham sofa in MN! A furniture store recalled that they sold it to a car dealership up in Stillwater, so we’ll be heading that way too.
Thanks for the heads up on the Mitchell and Gold stuff!
A while ago I had this same problem and ended up getting a great (and decent priced) red modern sectional from eQ3. There used to be an EQ3 section in one of the HOM furniture stores (but not all of them). But EQ3 is also a super cool store of its own in other cities (it is not actually owned by HOM), such as my hometown of Richmond, VA. Anyway, maybe check out their website. The sofas are really quality, the most comfortable and firm with a very low profile that we could find anywhere.