Sofas...are dfs any good?

DFS stuff has quite long guarantees now. I think something like 10 years for their own stuff and 5 for anything made externally. When you have anything wrong you just call up and a dude comes round and looks at it. No questions.

We bought our stuff from there for our first place and have been more than happy with it. Very comfy and lasting well so far (1 year).
 
I know you've said you don't have the cash upfront, but, have you tried looking at the second hand market?

You can get some absolutely cracking deals, and the reason for this is because people just simply can't be bothered moving or disposing of their old sofas. I picked up a really nice leather sofa when I moved into my first flat for £85 and all it needed was a clean/polish.
 
I ordered a three seat and two seat fabric sofa from DFS. Checked it out in the store, liked it and bought it. When it was delivered I immediately didn't take to it as it was different from the way it had been in the shop.

The difference was that the sofa that was delivered was a baggy, loose cover design which was very unlike the normal non-baggy design that I thought I had bought. I instructed them to take it back and I immediately got on to the store manager. After much debate, he admitted that the sofa I had bought at in store was 'pinned back' because it looked better. He then had the gall to say that he would refund all of money except for a £400 deposit. When you pay in full at point of purchase, how can their be a deposit?

Anyhoo, after many phone calls and a nice chat with trading standards, I got all of my cash back and promptly headed for Reid Furniture and bought a more expensive leather sofa which still looks like new after years of use. DFS? The dodo will walk this earth again before I buy anything else from them.
 
if you are not in a rush keep an eye on the bay, save some searches for models you like and in your general area..

a 1500 sofa after a year will go for a few £100 on the bay...
 
The quality of a sofa isn't determined by if it's leather or not. What makes a good sofa is a good frame, properly jointed, rigid and sturdy. The kind of frame that can be re-upholstered. The kind of frame that'll last for decades. The sort of stuff DFS sell is cheap tat, fibreboard, terrible dowel and cam screws etc.

Lift up the corner of one of these sofas - do the other 2 corners lift up, or doe it just kind of twist under it's own weight? That is the sign (or not) of quality furniture.
 
My parents bought a DFS sofa around 9~13 years ago, and that lasted bloody ages! Even with a bunch of fatties sitting on it
It lasted for at least 7 years, until we replaced it.
 
Take a look on eBay, there are loads of examples of relatively new sofas/3 piece suites for sale due to a change in circumstance for the owners. You can pick up some great bargains.
 
Forde said:
Anyone ever haggled at DFS?
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Always worth a try at funrniture retailers - the mark up is huge and there is normally room to haggle.

Only experience at DFS was when I was looking for a cheap sofa bed, found one at the right price and it was on a guarenteed delivery by Christmas promotion. So asked the saleman what the guarantee entailed and what would happen if they could not meet it. The answer was that I could cancel the order if it was not delivered on time :confused: Basically I could excercise my rights and that was all. I said that that was no guarentee at all, and the answer was that life has no guarentee. Walked out the store laughing without buying.
 
I bought an electric reclining leather settee and chair from DFS for my first house and 2 years in they are still good. Had 1 problem with the motor going in one of the settee parts which they came out and fixed immediately.

Yes they can be cheap, but when you've got next to no money to buy a very good sofa outright places like DFS are fine.
 
We've got a 3 seater (more like 4 seater) sofa-bed from DFS. It's the Celine range.

Not leather, but comfy, deep seats, high back and very soft to touch, absolutely LOVE it.

Was in DFS yesterday helping my gf's mother spec one for them, and they wanted leather too. The only once I could recommend out of the current range is the Zione range. Again, decent with both seat depth and back height.

99% of sofas in pretty much any store are either uncomfortable, have deep seats buy a low back, or a high back but shallow seats. Lame!
 
krooton said:
We've got a 3 seater (more like 4 seater) sofa-bed from DFS. It's the Celine range.

Not leather, but comfy, deep seats, high back and very soft to touch, absolutely LOVE it.

Was in DFS yesterday helping my gf's mother spec one for them, and they wanted leather too. The only once I could recommend out of the current range is the Zione range. Again, decent with both seat depth and back height.

99% of sofas in pretty much any store are either uncomfortable, have deep seats buy a low back, or a high back but shallow seats. Lame!
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Are you a giant? Surely everbody has an individual preference?
 
Cloth isn't that bad for hair, I have a black lab that malts like a monsoon and when living with my ex I just hoovered the sofa the same time as the floor, easy! This was with the dog allowed on the sofa too. If you got leather and let the dog on, scratches galore, so you'll probably end up covering it anyway.

I was lucky, I had my sofas handed down (one textile, one leather). The leather was the toughest really as it was easily scratched and it wasn't a cheap one when new either. Textile one looks like the day it was bought. Save money and get a decent hoover with the change :)
 
Morba said:
for your first home, dfs could be perfect tbh. cheap and will look ok.
cheap being the main thing!
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Spend the money though and they do some good quality stuff.

But I agree, they can do relatively cheap and decent quality stuff as well on finance so saves you the hassle if you have not got the money upfront.
 
I have a DFS sofa, I bought it because it was literally the only sofa that i really liked out of the ~10 different stores I went in over a few weeks. I actually actively tried to find a different sofa to buy from another store due to the stigma attached to DFS, but at the end of the day it was purely that the quality of the materials is excellent and the design was perfect for what we wanted in both styling and size. It's not leather, it's a microfibre or some such arms/back (looks like a very fine aligator skin kind of texture up close, but feels like suede) and a strong woven fabric cushion type affair, with duck feather scatter cushions. The main cushions do need to be flipped and "plumped" every few days or so if you're using it regularily, but we were advised of that before we bought it and it is exceptionally comfy, so it's a small sacrifice, the ones that didn't require this were no where near as nice to sit on :)

We have a dog and she's a fairly active scotty who loves to sit on the back of the sofa (so she can see out of the window) and it is standing up very well to the abuse of her jumping down from that an using it as a bouncy castle to soften the landing :D The sofa is a corner unit and is MASSIVE, i've fallen asleep on it by accident far too many times and slept through, and i'm a big bloke (6'4, 250lbs)

We had one slight hiccup with the delivery, in that the foot stool cushion was from a different colour scheme (it was VERY slightly different shades of grey), but the aftersales customer service on this was very good, they sent a request in and we had a new cushion within ~2 weeks and they let us obviously keep the other one in the mean time. They even offered to send someone out to swap it, but as I drive past the store every day i just popped in with it after work. It has a five year warranty, and we bought the scotchguard stuff which basically gurantees if we stain it at all except for with curry then they'll either get it professionally removed, or replace the material if it can't be.

First images are from when it was delivered, you can just see the slight discrepancy in the cushion colour:
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And excuse the badly stitched pano:

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But yea, if you find a sofa you're happy with in DFS and it's a price you're happy with, I personally can't see the issue with them bar their annoying adverts and some bad salesmen.
 
whitecrook said:
Are you a giant? Surely everbody has an individual preference?
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I am a decidedly average 5'11"

High back with shallow seat means you cannot lounge on the sofa at all, it's bolt upright like being in an aeroplane seat.

Deep seat with low back means no support for your head/neck and you end up staring at the ceiling when relaxing.

So many sofas look nice, but the majority are awfully uncomfortable, and we went to every retailer we could find (don't bother with SCS, terrible terrible range)
 
krooton said:
I am a decidedly average 5'11"

High back with shallow seat means you cannot lounge on the sofa at all, it's bolt upright like being in an aeroplane seat.

Deep seat with low back means no support for your head/neck and you end up staring at the ceiling when relaxing.

So many sofas look nice, but the majority are awfully uncomfortable, and we went to every retailer we could find (don't bother with SCS, terrible terrible range)
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as said i'm 6'4 and 250lbs, the cushions on our sofa are high enough at the back and deep enough in the seat that i can most definitely lounge around :D The foot cushion is usually infront of the "shallow" part of the sofa and i sit on the L, and I'm more than comfortable even in the most slouched of slouches lol. This sofa is massive though, it's over 3m wide iirc. I agree with you in general though, far too many sofas just weren't at all comfy.
 
The problem with dfs sofas is that the cushions are crap and don't last, that's after having 2 dfs sofas. Either you got lucky Tom, or we have had 2 bad examples. we had a big corner sofa like that and the cushions were crap after a year :(
 
We bought 2 leather sofas from DFS when buying our house about 4 years ago, they are still going strong and not had any issues with the quality of them at all.

Was actually surprised that they were as nice as was expecting them to be a little bit 'cheap', but they've held up very well and still look like new.

And they are nice and comfy, just the right size back and cushion depth for us :)

They weren't the cheapest in their shop, however still were not expensive with a 2 and 3 seater costing around a grand/£1200 I think.
 
whitecrook said:
Lift up the corner of one of these sofas - do the other 2 corners lift up, or doe it just kind of twist under it's own weight? That is the sign (or not) of quality furniture.
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yes the whole thing picks up. Although in truth you can barely lift it as its so heavy.
 
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