The Art of Buying a Sofa...or the lack of it

This is 2009 and my first project is to replace my old sofa!

Step 1 : Budget

I started by setting a budget so that i know what to look for and make sure that i dont burn a hole in my pocket.

Step 2 : Material

Mainly it is between fabric or leather. I chose fabric because in our Malaysia weather, it will be sticky if you sit on a sofa without air-cond switched on.

Step 3 : Look for best deals

Hahaha.......cant go wronglah. I have all the newspaper cuttings on furniture promotions from Rozel to Lorenzo, from Kedai Perabut Ah Aw to Kedai Perabut Ahlee.

Step 4 : Ask for feedbacks & recommendations

This is important as your friends or relatives who has purchased their sofa has gone through all the checks and surveys, by asking them, you actually cut down most of the hard work. Anyway please make sure you ask the ones that actually like you or else he/she will give you the wrong information.

Step 5 : Visit the short listed shops

If you must know, you cant actually trust your people 100%, so you must check it our the furniture yourself. So I visited all the shops that in town to check out the furniture myself, you need to see the real thing mah to decide. To see whether the sofa comfortable or not, the material ok or not, the colour pleases your eyes or not. You must also check the sofa seats got spring or not.

Step 6 : Buy it!!!!

Easy right???? WRONG!!!!!

Buying sofa is damn complicated, confusing and definitely time consuming!

There are so many designs in the market...from L shape to U shape, from contemporary to English style. Every shop owners will tell you conflicting information, Kedai Perabut Aw will tell you fabric is good and when you reached Kedai Perabut Ahlee, she will say leather is good, easier to maintain. All the promotions published is the newspapers came with fine prints......you need to buy X dollar of other things before you can buy this sofa at this dirt cheap price.

The worst mistake you can make is to ask your relatives, they will tell all your aunties, ahmah, ah poh, ah ku, ah sam,neighbours next door.......that you are buying sofas. whenever one of them met you, they will ask "when your sofa is coming" or said 'wah....rich hoh now? can buy new sofa huh?'...even my newspaper guy knew that i was buying a sofa.

The second biggest mistake i made was bringing Ms. Indecisive-but-want-to-decide. After numerous visits to so many shops until the shop owners also didnt want to entertain us or know us by name, she still could not decide! Do you know that most of the sofas are tailor made nowadays, so the shop needs at least 2 weeks to deliver to you. I always thought it was cash and carry! At last she decided on the Lorenzo models.....damn, RM 4,000++, half leather....but the worst thing was the day she decided, Lorenzo has stopped taking order because they cant guarantee they can deliver before CNY! Haiiii....back to square one!

Adoiii......CNY is just around the corner........looks like i better start cleaning my old sofalah...sigh!!!!