Sofas

How to choose a sofa

A sofa is the most-used piece of furniture in the house and one of the slowest to replace if you get it wrong. The headline decisions are size, fabric and colour, and most people skip the variables that actually decide whether the sofa is still comfortable in year five: the frame, the cushion fill, and the seat depth.

Size is the call most people overshoot. Measure the room first, then measure the door, hallway and any stair turns the sofa has to navigate to reach the room. A 230cm three-seater will not get up a tight staircase landing, and the polite delivery van leaves it on the pavement. The standard sizing rule of thumb: leave at least 30cm clear at each end of the sofa for floor lamps, side tables and air; allow 90cm of walkway in front. A 200cm three-seater suits most British living rooms; 230cm is the upper limit before the room reads sofa-first.

Frame and cushion fill are the long-term spec.

• Frame: kiln-dried hardwood (beech or oak) with mortise-and-tenon joints is the long-term answer. Glued plywood and particleboard frames are common in the £400 to £800 bracket and will start creaking in year three.
• Suspension: serpentine spring is the budget standard. Eight-way hand-tied springs are the upgrade that holds shape for a decade-plus.
• Seat fill: high-density foam wrapped in fibre is the practical default. Feather-and-foam mix sits softer and reads higher-end but needs daily plumping. Pure feather is too soft for most people once they actually live with it.

Seat depth is the most-skipped spec and the one that decides whether you can sit in the sofa or only on it. 50 to 55cm seat depth is right for most adults; 60cm-plus is "lounge" depth and works for people over 5'10" or for households who watch TV horizontally. Try sitting in any sofa for at least five minutes before you commit; the discomfort that ends purchases is the kind that takes a few minutes to register.

Fabric follows the household. Cotton and linen wear well and look right in most rooms but mark with kids and pets. Velvet and chenille hide marks better and add real depth to a room. Leather is the long-term answer if the budget allows; properly cared-for, a leather sofa outlives most upholstered ones by a decade. Performance fabrics (Crypton, InsideOut) are worth the £150 to £300 premium when the brief includes children or dogs.

Sizing: 2-seater, 3-seater, or 4-seater

Two-seater sofas (around 160 to 180cm long) suit smaller rooms and second-sofa duty. They're the right answer for snugs, second living rooms and rooms under about 14 square metres. Three-seaters (190 to 220cm) are the British standard and the size most living rooms are designed around. Four-seaters and corner sofas (240cm+) need a room that can absorb them; in anything under 20 square metres they read sofa-first.

If the room is bigger than 20 square metres, the better answer is often two smaller sofas facing each other, or a sofa-and-armchair pair, rather than one giant piece. The conversation works better and the room reads more considered.

The brands and retailers we list

We pull around 34,500 sofas from across the UK retailer network.

The Range stocks the broadest selection in the value-to-mid bracket, around 4,250 sofas covering fabric, leather, corner and modular designs in the £200 to £900 bracket.

Designer Sofas 4U builds upholstered sofas to order in Manchester, with around 3,800 listings covering Italian leather and fabric ranges from £900 to £4,000+.

Robert Dyas covers around 2,700 sofas, leaning into the £400 to £1,200 bracket with frequent voucher-code promotions.

Cox & Cox sits at the upper-mid end with around 1,200 sofas in country-modern and coastal styles, £900 to £6,000+.

Filter the grid above by colour, material, size or price to narrow things down, or browse the full sofa range without filters to see everything in stock. Prices update daily.