A couple of weeks ago I bought a beautiful leather Stickley sofa, with the finalization of the sale pending a survey of my apartment building (doorways, elevator, etc.) to ensure that it could fit. The sofa was a floor model at a considerable discount. Yesterday the survey was completed and it looks like the 90” sofa won’t fit inside the building freight elevator, and the stairs do not appear to be an option. Bummer.

Now I’m considering my options. Selecting a smaller sofa is obviously a potential solution, but any alternative would probably not be as steeply discounted as the sofa I’m trying to buy now, and that price was already at the upper limit of my budget. Currently, I’m considering the following options:

Option 1: hire a sofa disassembly service. Large sofas not fitting in NYC apartments is apparently a common problem, so there are a bunch of services that will disassemble the sofa and reassemble the sofa inside the apartment. There are a lot of positive reviews of these services, but I worry about compromises to the quality of the sofa after disassembly and reassembly. The warranty is definitely voided, but I’m also concerned with what would happen to the solid maple frame, the mortise tenon joints, the true eight-way hand tied suspension. This seems like a tough pill to swallow given that I’m paying thousands of dollars for a quality sofa, only to spend more money to have it butchered.

Option 2: cancel the sale, get my refund, and restore a sofa that I found on craigslist. I found an H&M sofa (looks like a September model) on craigslist for pretty cheap. Seller says it’s about 10 years old and in fair condition. There is some wear in certain spots on the leather, and the cushion cores need to be replaced. I’m interested in buying cheap and hiring a service to restore this sofa to as near reasonably good condition as possible. This sofa may also need to be dismantled to get it inside the apartment, but I feel a lot better doing this to this used sofa bought on the cheap. The problem is that I have no idea how much restoring the sofa could cost or whether the results would be any good. This could be too much money to pump into used furniture.

I would love to get any insight on this issue. I’m frustrated so perhaps I’m not thinking clearly and am overlooking better options. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks.