Sofa, So Good?
The pain and pleasure of custom Portuguese furniture
Hi friends,
Fall is upon us, and the rains have overtaken Porto, which means it’s time to cozy up on the couch with a warm blanket.
Yup, you heard that right… we finally got a couch. Only 4 months after we moved in.
In this furniture journey we:
Dream Up A Bedroom Set
Fall Out of Love(seat)
Learn lessons
Get Back in the Game
Have some quick hits
Alright, let’s get to it…
Dreaming Up a Bedroom Set
We stumbled upon a great little furniture store near our rental two years ago. We immediately fell in love with the owners and their sense of style. Hilary, a life-long advocate of decorative pillows, purchased a few to spruce up the rental.
Portugal is home to a massive furniture industry, so there’s a big market here for custom furnishings. It’s common and easy to have anything you want made to order. We spent the next year gathering design ideas, then returned to our new furniture friends and asked: “Can you make it?”
“Sim! Certo!” they answered. “Just show us pictures, tell us details, and pick your fabrics.” (They said this all in Portuguese, of course).
We walked them through what we needed - a couch, bar stools, and a natural ash wood bedroom set. We discussed measurements and finishes, picked our upholstery, sent photos of styles we liked, and made our down payment.
Weeks later, we got an email: “Your bedroom set is ready!” On the big day, they hauled the heavy wood items up our grueling 4 flights. As it arrived, our hearts sank.
The style looked correct, but the wood was two different colors! The dresser and end tables had ash frames, but the tops, sides, and drawer panels were ash-grain laminate. We thought we had ordered only “natural” wood, but this core detail was lost in translation (and never put in writing).
Unhappy, we sent the tables and dresser back, with the hope that staining the laminate to match the frame would make it look better. It was a half-assed fix that, well, got us halfway there. We’re not stoked with the result, but are living with it. At least the bed is super sturdy!
Oh, and the bar stools are fine.
Falling Out of Love(seat)
Nervous from the miss on the bedroom set, Hilary insisted on seeing the sofa before delivery, and when it was ready, we went to the shop for a preview.
Half of our two-part couch was ready to view, but it wasn’t plugged in, so we couldn’t test the electric recline feature. We liked the fabric and the look, but when we sat, it felt… well… not that comfortable.
And here is where we made our crucial mistake.
We both hate conflict. Standing in the warehouse, with this genuinely nice and proud furniture maker showing us a custom piece that looked exactly like what we ordered, we felt a lot of internal pressure to say “okay.” And we did, hoping it would be comfortable once we could set up and recline.
They delivered the couch that afternoon. We sat on it. And it is the LEAST COMFORTABLE couch we have ever put our butts on.
We were crushed.
We immediately reviewed all of our communications.
They never asked us what type of filling we wanted in the cushions, and we missed putting more core details like that in writing. We just trusted he would deliver everything we discussed since he took plenty of notes. And we assumed that they would make the cushions… cushy!!.
How we resolved it is a long and culturally cringe-y story. Suffice it to say that because the furniture was custom, and they delivered what we technically asked for, there was no monetary recourse.
They ended up hauling it back out and are helping us try to resell it. Which will never happen, because it’s a shit couch.
Lessons Learned
Get it ALL in writing, especially with language and cultural barriers. That I have to re-learn this lesson again in my 40s is ridiculous. Ughhhhh.
Don’t make assumptions across cultural lines. People from other cultures often make completely different baseline assumptions, even if you both see eye to eye on everything. Usually, there’s no ill intent. We learned this over and over with our remodel contractor, but the universe decided we needed to learn it again.
Buying local can be dangerous. Not necessarily because local shops have bad intentions. It’s just mentally more difficult for me to press hard on someone who’s barely making it, vs. a major department store. If this had happened with furniture from a big chain, I’d send it all back without a thought and fight to the death for my money back, blaming them for the lack of critical communication.
“Natural wood” doesn’t mean the same thing in Portuguese. We insisted on natural wood elements from both our builder and our furniture maker, but never stopped to define what “natural wood” means to us. In both cases, we got a composite or laminate with a natural wood finish. They genuinely believe it’s exactly what we asked for.
Getting Back in the Game
Being emotionally and financially scarred from the long, painful furniture process, we needed to go slow at the next attempt.
So we spent the next couple of months watching movies on zero-g reclining lawn chairs (which are actually quite comfortable). We shopped around. We even thought long and hard about buying an IKEA couch, which we had sworn ourselves against.
Then we went back to El Corte Ingles, the high-end Spanish department store in town. We had shopped there for couches on and off, but hadn’t found “the one.” This time, we finally scored.
We bought our new couch in July. One that we could sit on and test out. We ordered it in a custom size, so it took two full months to arrive. But it’s here. And it’s comfortable.
Quick Hits
I took Hilary on a surprise trip to Italy in September because that’s something you can do when you live in Europe. Our friends (Hilary’s childhood BFF) Melissa and Josh were coming to Italy for a wedding and reached out to me to set up a surprise rendezvous in Cinque Terre. It was a struggle to keep Hilary in the dark for weeks from when I told her to hold the dates, to when she had to pack, and then when I had to tell her we were returning to a part of Italy we had just visited a couple of years ago. But to see the tears of joy on her face when her friend appeared out of the darkness in a faraway land was pure magic. Also, we got a day in Pisa, which was new for us.
During September I got out for a few nice, long bike rides with my new riding buddy, Nicholas, including a 60km ride from Braga back to Porto, another 60k out to the Douro valley (with a lot of hills), and a 50k up to Póvoa. Each ride was a one-way, with either a train out and ride back, or a ride until we ran out of light/time with a train back. It’s insane to be able to just ride and ride and then catch a train home when you need.
With almost 2,000km on my “new” bike, it’s time for some upgrades. I recently had a new wheel built with more spokes (to handle all those cobblestones), new chain, and a new cassette that brings my gearing from 11-42 up to 11-46. This means more hills are in my future, and I’m here for it.
We finally got to see the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at Parque Serralves. Her work is legendary and experiencing it in person has always been on my list. It was deeply moving.
We have two foster kittens - sisters Viola and Guitarra. Someone found them in a shoebox at a metro station and put a call out on social for help. Of course, Hilary stepped up, and we have been caring for them for the past month. They pretty much run our house now. They’re adorable. Does anyone need two kittens? Hit me up.
How was your summer?
This week I have two albums for you. Fred Again released a new album, and so did Jamie xx. Both are great.
So glad you finally have a comfy couch. I think those are hard to find. My parents in Europe have a really uncomfortable stiff ugly ass couch I hate sitting on. I find that American sofas are too soft and too wide to be comfortable on. That’s why people put a ton of pillows on them and still my short legs don’t fit well and I am reclining uncomfortably. I like the Italian sofas but the leather that is so pleasant in summer can be very cold in the colder months. Maybe ikea is really the way to go. With the cheap price point you can change your mind every few years. So here you have it.