Bradington Young "So You"

[KCKDDS]

My wife and I have been looking for a quality sectional sofa for a few weeks now. The more we shopped around and researched some of the brands in our price range, the more we realized we were about to spend $4-5K on a Chinese piece of furniture with an American companies name. I discovered a few of these forums and realized how ignorant and clueless I was when it came to furniture. I've learned a lot and realized we'd probably have to spend a bit more money to get a good, quality, made in the USA leather sectional. After a recent trip to our local store (Nebraska Furniture Mart), we came across the Bradington Young "So You" option. You basically pick which sectional pieces you want a la carte, choose your arm and leg style, trim/stitching, nailheads, leather color, etc.

Does anyone have any experience with this option/program? I specifically asked the sales person if this was made in the USA and of the same high quality that I've read BY puts out. She assured me it was. But after reading about the Seven Seas line and that most of these American companies have separate lines of furniture made overseas, it makes me nervous to spend $7k without doing my research.

Thanks for any help and advice!

[KCKDDS]

The leather we chose if we do purchase the sectional is 9077-29-F. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but I've read about "married" leather made in China and since I can't find this particular leather type on the BY website, I'm wondering if I can tell what quality leather I'm getting from that product code. Thanks again!

[drcollie]

9077 series leather is King Street, Price Grade 2 and its a finished (painted) leather. For definitions on leather read this thread:

http://www.myfurnitureforum.com/show...ecting-leather

The 'So You' is a goofy-sounding simple "Design Your Own" program rolled out last Market, and it is USA made. I don't know the configuration you have put together but $ 7K seems a bit high. If you care to spec the model numbers I'll give you a price quote from my store (add in your location if you would like shipping figured in)

[KCKDDS]

Thanks for the quick reply and reference info. I'm not sure the model/model number of the couch, we grabbed a brochure by the floor model that we were sitting on that had some numbers on it. The configuration we had come up with was:

LAF Sofa Return - #93 on brochure
Armless loveseat (x2)- #78
RAF Chaise- #42

For these 4 pieces we were quoted $8100. Of course she talked to her manager and was nice enough to throw in an additional 5% off. We were comparing this sectional to an Elite Leather sectional that priced out at $9500, which is a little more than we were looking to spend. The Elite Leather was a Grade 3 leather, which may explain the price difference.

We also looked at a few pieces by Smith Bros and Huntington House that seemed to be good options, but the lady helping us recommended staying with a "leather company" if we chose to go with leather even though the other two were well made products.

Would you consider the "So Yours" option to be in line with BY's best products as far as quality or is a gimmick that I should be wary of?

[KCKDDS]

I'm located in Kansas City, MO. 64151.

[drcollie]

No worries, the 'SO YOU" is just standard Bradington Young product, packaged in a design-your-own system.

So a -93. -78. -78. -42 in a GR 2 (175 series) would be $ 8,810 from my store and have appx $ 700 in delivery fees. Thats a MASSIVE sectional, with (2) seats on the left, the corner, and (4) seats on the right PLUS the chaise? I've never put one that large a run together before (16 1/2 feet on the long side) and I've been 29 years at doing this. Are you sure that's the right spec? If you can get all that for $ 7,695 from your local dealer I don't think you can do any better on the price from anyone in the country on it.

[KCKDDS]

Thanks for the info Duane. I believe those specs/dimensions are correct according to the BY spec sheet we picked up. We are basically adding another 46" wide armless loveseat to the "L" shaped configuration on their spec sheet. So the short end of our L would be the 93" sofa. The long end would be 5 seats including the corner... it's listed as 117.5" on our spec sheet, plus another 46" armless loveseat, putting us at 163.5". Am I adding those pieces correctly or are we comparing different models?

[drcollie]

Here's the "SO YOU" diagram layout from the tear sheet



What you want to do is use model numbers for your layout, so we are on the same page. From what I see you are at 160" now withe latest variant, which is 13.3'. You've removed the chaise, unit, yes?

So a 174-93, -84 and -78 in GR 2 prices out at $ 6,463 with shipping of $ 800 to MO.

[KCKDDS]

After returning to NFM, we decided to sit on a few other sofas to decide what we really thought felt the best, rather than relying solely on the name brand. We ended up deciding on a Smith Brothers 8000 series "Build Your Own" option instead of the BY. We went with a LAF corner sofa, armless sofa, and a RAF chaise. 144" x 96". A little less real estate than on the option we were looking at above. We paid a little less than what we would have for BY, but we got a semi-aniline grade 4 leather with Smith Bros, rather than the pigmented Grade 2 leather we would have gotten with BY. It also looked like BY used some particle board/cheaper wood in the product line we were looking at, while Smith Brothers used an all hardwood maple frame. We did end up going away from the 8 way hand tied and into a sinuous spring, which there appears to be much debate about, but we were okay with that.

Thanks again for your answers Duane, you and this forum are great, especially for us rookies.

[drcollie]

Glad you found one that works for you. Would be great to get a report back on your purchase a year or so from now....I've often considered carrying Smith Bros, but I can't get past the sinuous spring suspension on them.