My plan for 5 years has been to get two Ekornes sofas, 2 and 3 seat, for back and side walls, when I get around to re-doing living room.
I think I would like the E40 design.
But the longest Ekornes is 84 inches (a very standard sofa width). There is at least 9 feet available on the side wall for seating.
So I'm looking at sectional sofas like this one. Looking for longer sofas I mostly find the ones that have added a lounge to the last of the 3 seats. That's nothing but a huge waste of space for me. What I'd like is a 4 seat sofa, or very long sectional…the one above sounds about as long as I can handle if not longer though it still doesn't seem to have more than 3 side seats…much of the "length" has been created by depth.
Here's an interesting sofa. It's just a little wider than standard, at 90 inches, but has 84 inch seating area, which is sufficient for more than three, and the cushions look flat and inviting as if 6 people could sit there in a pinch. But for 6 or even 5, I think I'd like considerably wider, back to the 108 inches I'm looking for. They say the width can be customized…THIS SOUNDS PROMISING! This company makes a nice looking (and pricey) product, but I can't completely get into the aesthetic of their fabric and leather choices, which look too lively to me. Just a nice soft beige would do nicely, I think.
Well I've narrowed choices at various places to 94 inches wide and above. Frequently these wider sofas simply waste space with a wide arm…I've seen arms as wide as 12 inches. Most often the arms are fairly useless anyway…too high to comfortably put your arms on.
Class the specifications should be something like this: arms should be about 3.5 to 5 inches wide, there is no need for anything wider. Arms should be about 8 inches above the sofa surface…when you are sitting down. Assuming about 1.5 inches of seat sink, that means about 6-7 inches above the sofa surface when no one is on it, I'm thinking. Almost all arms I've seen are too high, pointless for anything except leaning against, which seems to be the point, for example, in a Bonnie and Clyde style sofa. (BTW, my sofa has arms 8 inches above the surface with no one sitting on it. That works because I hold my arms out to the side, making them rise. But this would not be good if I were sitting closer to the arm, as with more people packed onto the sofa. 6-7 inches is about right I think.)
A lot of the wider sofas have no cushions.
They may have, for example, a tufted seat. Well that looks nice, except if you get it dirty you have a major problem. A sofa should have a removable cushion I think. And for a wide sofa, 1-4 cushions will do.
I think the most useful idea is a one cushion sofa. This appears to be called the Paramount design. The arm looks slightly high and I think I'd prefer a smooth beige leather to busy fabrics.
Here's a very interesting long sofa, Yates Designer Style Modern Single Seat Sofa, with one cushion in exactly 9 feet. Also comes in 98 inches and other lengths. Also "handcrafted" in USA and shipping weight is 220 pounds which makes it sound very substantial despite the trim appearance. After a whole night of finding sofas just barely over 90 inches, made in China, and weighing about 90 pounds, I was tempted to click "buy."
However, right about this time I came to a stunning realization. If I have a long sofa filling up the 9 feet of available space on the side wall, I won't be able to put much seating on the end wall!
My problem is often thinking of things in "stylized" terms rather than full 3D. It seems you ought to be able to fill two adjacent walls completely. And you almost can with bookcases, because they are relatively shallow. But with a 39" deep sofa (like the Ekornes linked at top), that 39" subtracts from the available space along the adjacent wall. And even more, you need some gap just to put your legs in, so you actually need to subtract 55 inches or more from the available length on the adjacent wall. So with standard depths you lose about 55 inches from adjacent corners (one partial solution to this being sectionals, about which I'll say more later).
I measured the end wall to the doorway (and I need to sit as close as possible to that for good stereo) and it's about 92 inches. But after subtracting 55 inches for the sofa along the side wall, I'm left with 37 inches, which is not enough for a loveseat.
Here's a nice "small" 55 inch wide loveseat like one I once bought from a street seller in San Francisco. I started searching for even smaller love seats and then I discovered Comfy1, who makes loveseats as small as 40 inches wide and 30 inches deep. Their standard depth is 34 inches, down from the typical 39, explicitly to save space, and they also make sofas with depth as small as 30 inches (they show two heavy 6 footers sitting comfortably in a 40 inch wide 30 inch deep loveseat…but there's little room to spare). They also make large single seats with flat cushion, which allows two friendly and not huge people to sit right next to each other, like a small loveseat for actual lovers. So I could have my 37 inch wide seat! I find all their ideas and pictures very interesting. Their prices are high but it looks like the quality is worth it, and I agree completely that most retail furniture is often throwaway garbage, and their stuff looks like heirloom quality with optional finished hardwood sides and backs (just the thing for someone with animals).
To maximize the amount of seating from a pair of adjacent walls, and create a kind of camaraderie as well, the well known solution is to have a sectional sofa. With a sectional sofa, the loss in seating from the adjacent wall as described above is minimized (but not eliminated!).
Consider the very efficient Comfy1 sectionals. With standard depth of 34 inches, there is by necessity 34 inches where you can't really "sit" (though if nobody else is on one side of the sofa, you can lay down there). So is the dead space reduced from 55 inches to 34 inches?
Well, not really, two people still can't sit exactly at the end of each side at the same time, they have to sit back from the corner simply so their legs don't try to occupy the same space. So how far apart would they have to sit? It's hard to say, this would be the point where their two legs would just touch at the end. Assuming legs come out about 8 inches from the sofa, that would mean they'd have to each sit back from the corner about 8 inches. That means our 20" benefit from having a sectional is reduced to 4" of actual increased seating space. So you see there's hardly any benefit to this approach at all, except you can potentially lay down or sit cross-legged in the sectional corner, and it looks more "regular" and egalitarian than other solutions.
There is something especially rational and democratic about sectional sofas. But a custom section to fit exactly the walls I have is going to be quiet expensive, around $5000 from Comfy1 in the nicer "Florida" style with hardwood sides and front.
And you don't get a fancy recliner or super-comfort seating like the Ekornes. I'd want that seating for the end of the room because is the nice place to watch TV.
So if I have a two seat Ekornes on the back wall, what kind of side wall sofa can I have? Well it has to sacrifice at least the last 39 inches for the width of the Ekornes itself. Starting from 108 inches, that leaves 69 inches. Which is almost exactly what the existing Loveseat is! This leaves a "dead space" in the actual corner which could be used for a table and/or an acoustic absorber.
So one option is "full size" specialty loveseat in the back and another loveseat on the side. Another is long sofa on the side and "large single seat loveseat." Another is full custom sectional 92x108.
He were face the multipurpose nature of the room head on. For watching TV at the end of the room, the best solution is a long wall of seating along the end wall, then sacrifice seating on the side wall. For discussion party, the side wall should have the most seating, with perhaps a large single seat on the side wall.
As of July 11, I'm thinking the combination of a Yates single seat sofa and back room large chair actually provides the most seating space, or as much as any, but the sectional is custom more aesthetically pleasing and actually is only marginally more expensive overall.
While the back room side of the sectional would only nominally provide space for 2, it's much larger than the 37" chair and could actually seat 3 people, with as many as 5 along the side wall. With the large chair, which seats two close people in a pinch, and the 108" Yates, which looks to seat 6 people in a pinch, you get the same total pinch occupancy. BTW current pinch occupancy is 6--with two people sitting in small armless chairs.
