Sofa, so good?

With the ground floor complete, except reinstating the reused skirting, our thoughts have moved on to additional furniture.

Our two existing sofas have done sterling service over the past 8 years and we have no plans to get rid of them as they're still in good shape, quite literally. Not bad considering they're covered in a cream cotton fabric. Goes to show that it was worth paying slightly more for good build quality from the Sofa Workshop.

That said, with the extra space we now have we'd like some additional seating so we've spent some time looking for another sofa. Not as easy as it sounds, even with the temptation of the New Year Sales.

Our existing sofas still look good partly due to build quality, partly due to simple modern design. We've been able to rule out a vast array of the sofas on the market due to fussy and over detailed design, especially most of what DFS sell. In other stores where the furniture initially looked attractive, such as Next, we ruled out their sofas as they were upholstered in either artificial fabrics or leather with excessive numbers of seams. (We've still not decided on leather or fabric - if it's fabric it'll have to be natural, ensuring it's sustainable and limiting our exposure to toxins. And we recognise that leather production can be a very polluting process even if the hides are a by product of the meat industry, so it's not an easy decision to make)

Sofas from other stores have been tempting, especially with some of the deals that are available, but there's always been something to stop us reaching for our wallet. Usually this has been build quality, as not only is it not financial sense to buy cheap and have to replace it in a few years, it's a poor use of resources.

We've even looked in our local second-hand shop but there's nothing there that suits us - after all we want to be eco and chic at the same time, albeit maybe not quite to Oliver Heath's standard (http://www.ecohomeideas.co.uk)

So three options remain:

1. Find a cool secondhand sofa, and with a friend of a friend getting rid of a Chesterfield this may happen.

2. Return to Sofa Workshop and dig deep into the bank account - we know we'll be happy with the UK made quality product, but it comes at a cost.

3. Find another supplier of UK made and sustainable furniture - Green Woods in Clifton http://www.greenwoodsfurniture.co.uk/ seem to fit the bill so we'll have to pay them a visit.

Alternatively we could just sit on the floor. Not sure all our visitors would be keen on that though.