Sofa Sagas: My Gorgeous, Terrible, eBay Failure

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

When we moved two years ago, I really only had one wish—a fever dream, really—and that was to have an office. Something tiny would be fine; I just wanted to have a door between my desk and the rest of the house, with its noise and endless distractions. I wanted a room dedicated to work where I could leave all my notes strewn about, and to be unobserved as I took breaks to stare into the middle distance, like Mad Men’s Don Draper on his sofa, feeling the luxury of seemingly endless time to let ideas come to me. Let’s ignore for a moment that I’m more like Peggy Olson, frantically typing to meet too many deadlines—I wanted that feeling of private space and freedom.

Not only did I get an office, but it turned out to be big enough to fit a sofa. I felt like I’d hit the jackpot. A sofa! Hello to morning creative ponderings! (Or more likely, hello to afternoon stress naps.) I started looking around for something that would fit my criteria, which was tricky: the move had been extortionate, so I didn’t have a big budget, and it had to fit up the hairpin turns of the stairs in our narrow London Victorian house. When I forwarded potentials to my partner Luke, he added a wish of his own: could the sofa please be long enough for him to nap on, without having to bend his legs? He’s a man of average height but this knocks out a surprising many cute options. And because I came of age in the midcentury-modern design revival, I couldn’t help but be forever drawn to the sleek lines of timeless Danish teak, the bold curves of G Plan, and an elegantly tapered sofa leg, angled just so.

Years ago, I’d found a vintage coffee table that I later realized is almost identical to the one Don Draper has. I’d been drawn to it because it was very similar to the table my dad had as a student, and it looked perfect with the rust-colored table runner I’d pulled from my parents’ cupboard before leaving home—it seems midcentury fashions are less appealing for those who experienced it firsthand—as well as a rough earthenware candlestick that sat on the kitchen table throughout my entire childhood. As I scoured the internet looking for a sofa to go with this setup, I discovered what everyone on this hunt is doomed to realize: the nice ones are really expensive. But bargain hunters know to go secondhand. The table was an eBay purchase—which is fine for wood, but this is upholstery. Could I stomach buying a secondhand sofa?

Bed bugs are becoming more commonplace in the U.K. and I got itchy just thinking about it, so I kept browsing. New and safe sofas were available, but so were the brutally priced beauties on sites like Etsy, Danish Homestore, and Vinterior, which kept showing up in my searches just to taunt me. I kept coming back to an oatmeal-colored wool sofa with striped cushions and an angled leg, in very good condition. It was also a rare case of a vintage sofa long enough for Luke to stretch out on. Maybe this was the one?

The seller was an eBay shop called UKDK Furniture, whose profile professed to having two warehouses in Suffolk "regularly restocked with shipments from Denmark." The listing was written to hit me where I live: "Vintage Danish four seat 1960s sofa, wool upholstered, retro, MCM." I messaged UKDK’s owner, Sideboard Pete, to ask if the legs were detachable—there was no way it would go up the stairs otherwise—totally, said Pete. The listing was £600 ($820) but for an extra £70 ($90) he could have it delivered to London. Pete was making it very easy—no wonder he had over 99 percent positive feedback. "I bet it means his warehouses are clean and bug free," I thought, slowly talking myself into it.

The sofa is a failure—but the thought of the hassle of selling it and having to find a new one fills me with dread.

But even with the legs off, would the sofa fit up the stairs? My office is on the top floor and furniture needs to maneuver around a tricky U-bend. I asked Luke what he thought—he’s an engineer with above-average spatial reasoning skills, but the geometry of our tight London Victorian had him beat. Undeterred, I pulled the measurements from the listing and got to work creating a physical model—I may be a media graduate but how hard can it be! I taped together two brooms for length, and cut out two cardboard shapes for the sides. Luke chuckled as he helped me carry the "sofa" around the house, but admitted it was clever. It would definitely fit through the office doorway as long as we took the door off its hinges, and it would probably fit up the stairs.The broom-and-box model didn’t account for its full thickness, but as I shifted and shimmied and squinted, it seemed like it would be fine.

The sofa arrived on time and fit its description (positive feedback for Pete!). I vacuumed the sofa and left it in the hall for a few days to see if anything was going to crawl out of it, but it was fortunately uneventful. We successfully got it up the stairs and into my office, where it looked perfect next to my Mad Men table. I added a few thin wool blankets I’d picked up from my grandparents’ farm, and sat down feeling pleased with myself, my vision come to fruition, as I stared off into the middle distance.

But as it turns out, that’s about all you can do on this sofa: sit up straight against the backrest. This is often fine as I like to sit there and work, upright with a laptop. I will also sometimes lie down to watch TV on it, but I’ve learned the hard way that this sofa is not a sleeper—last time I dozed off there I woke up at 3 a.m. with hips so sore I could barely wobble myself to the bedroom. And after all that trouble to get the longer sofa, Luke’s nap dreams have been crushed—he won’t go near it, as the cushions have steel frames and it’s like "pieces of rebar wrapped in burlap."

"That couch is a compromise between your aesthetic preferences and my desire for something long enough to be nappable, but it’s ended up more like a peanut butter and ketchup sandwich," he adds. "There’s nothing wrong with those flavors on their own, but it’s a hostile combination."

The sofa is a failure—but the thought of the hassle of selling it and having to find a new one fills me with dread. The only creatures that will join me on that sofa are the cats, and when I sit there alone it just feels ridiculously long—if no one is going to lie down, I might as well have got an armchair. But I’m resigned to living with my gorgeous, terrible sofa, at least until we move next.

Luke, who’s American, thinks this is all because I’m European: "Europeans sit on the sofa, while Americans sit in the sofa. It’s meant to envelop you and be soft and comfortable, but a European sofa is more like a long chair. There’s a huge difference in the baseline expectation of comfort," he says. I’m not sure if this is true, but I’m on board with prioritizing well-being next time. But then I look at midcentury-modern designs online again and hope stirs—out there, it must exist, a stylish and comfortable sofa that doesn’t cost the earth? This mythical piece of furniture is probably out of reach for me, much like Don Draper’s wide-open work schedule. But one thing’s for sure: I’m never going to buy a sofa I haven’t tried out again. I don’t care how beautiful it is—I’ve learned my lesson.

Illustration by Andrea Chronopoulos

Related Reading:

Why Are (Most) Sofas So Bad?

Sofa Sagas: It Took Three Moves in Three Years to Find the Right Couch For Me