Don't Do Domicile

When we bought our house a year and a half ago, our friends couldn’t believe how fast we filled up the place. We moved from a 2 bedroom condo to a 4 bedroom house and somehow our ‘stuff’ filled the place pretty well. We just ‘let it out a little bit.’

Our goal was to make the most of the main floor space and our old couch and living room set were not worthy. The old coffee table was from my college days and my husband was sick of it and I was *really* sick of it. Thus, the search for the perfect couch began. My stepdaughter was my ally and awesome ‘design assistant’ and took to her task well and willingly (having adult kids has its perks!).  

We talked about what we thought would work in the 100+ year old house, which has built-in book shelves, wood floors and stained glass windows original to the structure. And we talked about what we each liked - as far as design, color, shape, fabric, and so on.

My husband declared that he likes mid-century modern furniture. I get the look but don’t think it fits our space or our needs for functionality or durability. It’s all skinny legs and armrests - and reminds me of uncomfortable couches from my childhood - or those same couches even more uncomfortable in the college days. It does not scream 'let's hang out with friends and family for game or movie nights.'

But we wanted to be diplomatic, so we started with the basic shape of the mid-century modern and found couches from various stores and designers that were close to it. Some had softer fabric, some had square boxy lines but larger frames and more cushions, and some had a sort of texture to the fabric that hinted at the style with some practical features elsewhere and more solid legs and frames.

Our research done, we printed pictures of the couches in contention and hit them all in one day: Room & Board, Crate and Barrel, Macy’s, West Elm and Domicile. We ended up at the football- field sized store in Lincolnwood of the last store on the list. It seemed wise at the time because we also needed an area rug and some chairs to finish the big living room.

We had time to test out every couch and chair in the place. Meaning: the sales staff more or less answered a question if you caught them at the central desk area but didn’t bother to walk around and ask if customers needed help. I thought we’d done our homework well enough though, so I didn’t let it bother me. At the time.

The store’s so-called ‘interior designers’ were about as helpful as my cats in our whole shopping and selection process. They have this promise that they will draw up a design of the room for a fee, and if you buy furniture, the cost goes toward the purchase but I doubt few, if any, customers have received this elusive perk. We certainly didn’t.

We forged ahead on our own, selecting a smaller sectional to make sure we didn’t overwhelm the space (but really, bigger would have been better in this case - and is why a design plan would have been nice). We placed our order in January, took delivery just before Easter… and by Memorial Day, we had buttons falling off the seat cushions, left and right.

Fast forward 15 months: we are *still* waiting for replacement, properly made, matching cushions for our 2-cushion couch after 3 failed attempts. The salesperson admitted they'd had problems with tufted cushions losing buttons and now had an "improved button technology" that used larger and stronger hooks. So they were well aware of the problem - and that's probably why this style of couch has been discontinued and you can't even find images of it online.

Replacement cushions: First we ordered 2 new ones and one cushion HAD buttons and the other had NONE - just holes where buttons should be. The next single cushion had NO buttons or holes. We now have 5 cushions but not a matching set with intact buttons. How hard is this, people??

I went in to pick up the replacement cushion for the 3rd time a few weeks ago - and was told they didn’t have records of my order because they got a new computer system. They could clearly see the cushion I had just picked up and what company it came from, but they didn't make any notes of that - just took my name and number and said "someone would call me" to follow up on the issue. Yeah, right. (I’m still waiting….)

I dug around online and learned this tufted cushion slash customer service problem is NOT an ISOLATED one, as a number of Yelp reviews and Better Business Bureau complaints attest. Yet the company has done nothing except erroneously reply to my Yelp review - and done nothing to rectify the problem. I wish I'd checked Yelp and the BBB site BEFORE I purchased products from this company! (I will next time!)

While I wait for things to sort out with the Better Business Bureau and my recently disputed charge for the couch on my Visa, I’ve had another completely different furniture experience.

We’ve worked twice with Square Nail Chicago to design and make custom wood furniture and had a great experience both times. Not everything went perfectly but the small busiiness owner worked with us every step of the way to figure things out and make things work and look awesome. Delivery was included for free as well.

I will write a separate blog about working with this small business to get custom furniture made for our home using reclaimed wood. We now have one of a kind furniture that is beautiful and unique and we helped create it, and helped support a small local business in the process. If only Square Nail made couches too… we’d be in serious “business” then!