In Lieu of New Upholstery

File this under ‘band-aid solutions” & “lesson learned”.  Months ago, I briefly complained about our sofa.  And now it is worse:

Can’t tell you how thrilled I am that our couch is disintegrating.  Sigh.  I contacted The Brick, where we purchased it from, and learned that even though we bought the extended warranty, it won’t cover this because the top part of our leather sofa is vinyl and vinyl isn’t covered.  We did not know it was vinyl.  It was, apparently, our responsibility to ask whether any part of our “leather” sofa is vinyl.  Now I have been eyeing the rest of it suspiciously.

But, silver lining: aiming to cover it up while we figure out what to do, I found this fabulous throw (in houndstooth, yay!).  By Liteksas & Calw, it is lambswool and silk, plus it is made in Lithuania (where my hubby’s grandmother emigrated from).  I might not have even looked for throws had the sofa not started looking horrible, so . . . bright side, right?  Plus I like how it breaks up all the dark brown.  And, even though patterns scare me, it is yet another patterned element I’ve introduced, so yay me. 

 

But, If I had a time machine:
I would save our pennies a bit longer, and buy better quality.  I also would have asked tons more questions and not assumed anything based on the store’s description. 

But, alas, we did not do the above because this sofa met our four requirements at the time:

1. Brown leather (we like to eat messy things in there and nothing cleans better)
2. Sofa bed (at the time we didn’t have a guest room)
3. Clean lines
4. Under a grand

Now we’re in limbo.  Buy a new sofa? Take The Brick to small claims court? Just leave the throw and party hearty, not having to worry about wrecking the darned thing?  Setting it on fire was brought up, but dismissed. 

Have you made any big purchases you regret?  What would you do in our shoes?
P.S. Click here for more living room pics.