New sofa won’t fit inside NYC apartment. What to do?

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.

Given the options, I would not use a disassembly service except as a last resort (non-returnable purchases, etc). They don't dis-assemble as much as they cut the frame in half with a saw and then using metal mending patches to put it back together. And they are expensive - would be around $ 700 and like you say - forget about the warranty once they do that. This is a last-ditch option when you have no other way to do things.

Forget about restoring a 10 year old sofa. That's like restoring a 10-year-old car. The cost will far-far exceed the price of new by at least double, if not triple.

The two reasonable options are to get a smaller sofa that can come in under your dimensional limitations or go the sectional route, which lets you bring two or more components into the apartment and they latch together once in the apartment. What is the space of the tightest doorway opening you have to go through and the height limitation of the elevator interior? And what did you pay for the Stickley?

Thanks for your response! The tightest doorway opening is 32.5 inches, which is the door to the apartment. The height limitation in the freight elevator is about 83 inches, which is the trouble with the 90" sofa (it's a decent size freight elevator at 83" x 60" x 50", just not tall enough). I paid $3K for the Stickley, not including tax and shipping.

OK, well, here's the two ways I would suggest you go.

The easiest way and to get what you really want is do a sectional. However, this is more costly so if you are working in that $ 3K budget, this is going to take you over that. Take a look at this link:

http://www.hancockandmoore.com/Produ...ry/16/Your-way

One piece would be the -21 Loveseat. This easily goes into the elevator and your door opening. Then the second piece would be either the -12 chair (total run length is 88") or the -22 loveseat (total run length 112").

The other option is to go with a smaller unit (length) that will fit through the 32.5" doorway. The Hancock & Moore # 9840 is 83" long and easily does the door width, and is on promotional pricing in the Just in Time promotion that will get you at or below the Stickley price. Now the exact height of the elevator is critical, because an 83" sofa will not fit in an 83" Elevator. We need dead-on accuracy...so is the elevator 82.5" or 83.5" ? That inch can be important. Let's say the elevator is exactly 83" high in clearance. We can have H&M take a little off the arm padding of that 9840 and get that sofa to 82", possibly 81.5". and that inch to inch and a half is what gets it in the elevator. H&M is one of the few companies that will actually work with a customer to make this happen as all pieces are handmade one at a time in Hickory NC, so a little tweak here and there is possible.

Again, I'd not get into frame cuts if at all possible to avoid.

I like the sound of the latter option! Funny, H&M 9840 and the Stickley appear share an identical style: https://www.stickley.com/OurProducts...h=&Collection=

I am pretty sure the elevator will accommodate 83". I actually measured the elevator to be more like 86" in height, but the building manager told me that it was 83". I will get some clarification.

I would love to go this route.

If you have close to 86" height in the elevator, the 9840 City from H&M will go in easily.