Sofa Sagas: My "Big Cozy" Is a Lesson in the Art of Compromise

Welcome to Sofa Sagas—stories about the circuitous search for a very important and occasionally fraught piece of furniture.

This past April, my boyfriend decided (seemingly overnight) to make the move to New York from Los Angeles. We needed a place to live, so in true New York City fashion, we found an apartment, I checked it out that weekend, and within the week, we had signed a lease. By the end of that month, I left my long-term, furnished sublet in Brooklyn and found myself moving in to our soon-to-be-shared apartment alone, with many bags of clothing in tow, and zero furniture.

The oversize loft we found was incredible, but daunting: the looming space was one giant open room, with no subdivision or built-in storage. My boyfriend was set to arrive just two weeks after I’d moved in to our new space. I knew he would want to have a couch to rest his weary limbs upon arrival, something more comfortable than the mini coffee table I’d been using as a seat. In the weeks before his arrival, I slowly got things together: a small kitchen table, two chairs, a kitchen island. But still, no couch. (In a moment of delusional optimism, I had told my boyfriend not to bother with bringing his beautiful, tobacco leather Gerard van den Berg couch to New York—cross-country furniture moving seemed like a hassle, and besides, we could start from scratch and furnish the space together with an entirely new vision.)

When he arrived, we were still couch-less. So we did an endless scroll through Facebook Marketplace, trying to find something immediate that would fit our space—and taste.

My boyfriend has a finely curated aesthetic vision, one filled with antiques and a slow-collecting ethos of acquiring quality furniture. Mine is a bit more impatient, practical, comfort-oriented, and contemporary. His dream was for a leather De Sede couch, one that looked aesthetically pleasing and luxurious. I, on the other hand, wanted what I call a "big cozy"—a comfortable, oversize sectional that I could lay on and have overnight guests sleep on. I envisioned vintage SoHo loft aesthetics, something draped in white linen and vaguely Belgian.

If you have ever had to search for a sofa, I imagine you are well aware of the days and nights of scrolling that inevitably leave you right where you started. Between Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, 1st Dibs, Chairish, and the plethora of DTC brands, the options are mind-numbing and endless. Soon enough, everything starts to look wrong—or right —blending together into a sea of sameness, and the indecision becomes crippling.

With my boyfriend’s insistence that we needed to "just get something," I scrambled to find a couch that would work: I came across a vintage Design Within Reach "Nicoletti" sectional in chocolate Italian leather with sleek chrome legs. It was sexy, like something out of an ’80s bachelor pad, and was in great condition. Was it my taste? No. Did it look comfortable? Not really. But I gave into that omnipresent urge to get the agony of searching over with and have something to sit on. When I went to check out the couch in person, it wasn’t my favorite—and it looked small. But maybe it would look better once in our space and not in the dim glow of a crowded storage unit. Over FaceTime, my boyfriend said he liked the couch and couldn’t deal with any more options, so a day later, the Nicoletti was delivered to our apartment.

Within minutes of its arrival, I knew it was wrong. The leather was slippery—any blankets we placed on the edge slid off, and the pieces of the sectional didn’t stay together. Also, it was tiny. The depth was so narrow that I could barely sit on it. One night, my boyfriend and I tried to lay on it together, and had to hold on to each other like Jack and Rose on the door at the end of Titanic, just to keep from falling off. I tried not to complain, but eventually, I couldn’t keep my couch fury inside any longer. Every day, the couch made me angrier. Was it chic? Yes. Aesthetically, it looked great, and the dark brown leather contrasted with our light gray rug perfectly. But functionally, it was horrible. Two months after we bought it, my boyfriend finally relented. "You’re right," he said one night, after the couch sections drifted apart wide enough to create a chasm, sending his behind onto the floor with a thud.

This time, he agreed to let me have my way with a "big cozy" so we narrowed our options. No more vintage, auctions, or Marketplace—just practical and comfortable, but still stylish. After searching high and low, we narrowed it down to Sixpenny. A few weeks prior, we had been at a friend’s very chic house, filled with designer furniture and expensive art. After telling her about my couch debacle, she made me try out her Sixpenny sofa. Upon first sitting, I was wrapped in luxurious linen and immediately, very comfortable. The couch was so deep that two people could lay on it side-by-side—and so deep I needed help getting up and out of it. Instantly, I knew this was going to be the one for us.

That night, I went home and resumed my search, with visions of aesthetically-pleasing comfort dancing in my head. In the end we let comfort choose for us: we selected the sofa with the largest seat depth as an antidote to our narrow couch trauma—and it was ready-to-ship, which meant that in under two weeks, comfort would be ours. The Neva 4-piece chaise sectional in medium-weight linen was the answer: it was the coziest, softest, cocoon-like sofa, described as their "fluffiest family, famous for its sink-in soft cushions, and unparalleled cloud-like comfort." I was sold.

In person, the Neva looked even better. The first night with our new couch, my boyfriend and I laid on opposite ends of the sofa—with about a foot still in between us, almost too comfortable to speak. We stared at each other in pure bliss. We were cozy, at last.

Top illustration by Victoria Tentler-Krylov.

More Sofa Sagas stories:

My Gorgeous, Terrible, eBay Failure

It Took Three Moves in Three Years to Find the Right Couch for Me