The Best Sectional Sofa: Shopping Tips!

Looking for the best sectional sofa? I’m sharing my recommendations and shopping tips!

It’s been about seven years since we bought the sectional sofa in our family room and I still get questions about it almost daily from those of you who are shopping for a sectional for your own home. The most common questions I get are about which sectional sofas are best, what to look for when shopping for one, and how I keep mine looking so clean. I put a LOT of time and research into choosing our family room sectional (it was a huge investment!) and learned so much along the way that I decided to share what I know! Let’s jump on into this Q & A style… (post includes affiliate links – full disclosure statement available {here})

What Are The Best Sectional Sofas?

There definitely isn’t a single best sectional but I can tell you that after talking to a ton of people and reading endless reviews, sectionals are typically a “you get what you pay for” piece of furniture. You don’t have to go crazy with a $20,000 sectional to get an excellent one but on the other hand, don’t expect to get 20 years out of a $1000 sectional. When shopping for a sectional for our family room, I was looking for a high quality piece that we would have for at least the next 10-15 years and that would hold up well to daily use.

Two brands I highly recommend that I think make some of the best sectional sofas out there are Lee Industries and CR Laine – they’re both extremely reputable brands based in the US with several different sectional styles that I love. I ended up choosing a Lee Industries sectional mainly because I’ve had a great experience with their furniture in the past. Our sectional is {this design} which we ordered in a custom configuration from a Lee Industries retailer (none of the non-custom options fit our space unfortunately) with Basket Natural fabric. For a similar non-custom (and less expensive) Lee Industries option, check out {this beautiful sectional}.

The most economical way to buy a Lee Industries sectional is purchasing one through Crate & Barrel (you can check out the Lee Industries sectionals they offer {here}) or Serena & Lily (you can see their sectionals {here}) and choosing one of their stock fabrics. If they don’t have a sectional style or stock fabric that works for you, then you’ll have to go custom (which is a good bit more $$$ but there are a ton of options) – you can go through either store or through a local Lee Industries retailer which you can search for {here}. If your head is spinning looking at those sectional price tags, I get it – it literally took us two years to pull the trigger on a nice sectional because it was so much money!

If a Lee Industries sectional is way over your budget, a great mid-priced option is Pottery Barn’s York sectional that you can find {here}. There are multiple configuration options, the choice of square of sloped arms, and slipcovered or non-slipcovered – my favorite is the slipcovered slope arm sectional found {here} – so pretty!

If your budget is tight, I would look at the IKEA UPPLAND sectional – it’s not a “forever” piece of furniture but is so easy to care for (it’s slipcovered and you can simply throw the slipcovers in the wash), fairly comfy, and a great value for the price! I own one of the EKTORP sofas (the same as the UPPLAND but not as deep) and after having it for six years, it’s still going strong:

What Things Should I Look for When Shopping for a Sofa or Sectional?

When shopping for a sectional, some of the things I looked for that are indicators of a higher quality furniture piece are:

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US made
Hardwood frame (avoid soft woods and particle board)
Eight-way hand-tied springs
Double-doweled and blocked joints on corners
A good system for how the sections interlock. Our old sectional had plastic connectors that would often come apart and one even broke. My current sectional has metal connector that work beautifully – they always stay connected yet they’re easy to disconnect if you want to move any of the sections apart.

An excellent warranty

What’s the Best Fabric for a Sectional Sofa?

There are some really amazing performance fabrics out there (Sunbrella, Crypton, etc .) so if you have young kids or pets you’ll want to check those out! They can withstand some of the worst of spills and still come back looking amazing because they can be washed (if you have a slipcovered sectional) or cleaned using things as harsh as a bleach solution! If you’re going to choose something that’s not a performance fabric, look at the double rub count of the fabric – a higher count means a heavier duty fabric that should wear better.

How Do You Keep Your Light-Colored Sectional so Clean?

I get this question ALL of the time. And actually, while I really wanted to find a performance fabric to use on my sectional, I had a very specific linen-like look in mind and ended up going with Basket Natural (not a performance fabric) because it was exactly the look that I wanted. The things I do to keep it clean are:

Don’t allow messy food and drinks on the sectional – we eat popcorn and drink water or seltzer on it but if it’s a food that has the potential to cause a bad stain, if you want to eat in the family room you have to eat it on the coffee table. Of course, when we have other adults over, we have wine and other goodies when hanging out on it – the food and drink rules are for the kids!
Use lots of throw blankets – we’ve always allowed our dog up on the sectional so I make sure we keep a few throws on it. She would always rather cuddle up on a throw than lie on the bare sectional so it keeps her (and her hair) on the throws that can be thrown in the wash.
Wash it (because it’s slipcovered!). I chose a slipcovered sectional both for the look of it and because if you do get a bad stain, the slipcover can be easily removed and taken to the laundromat.
I haven’t done this (even though I totally meant to soon after getting it) but if you are really concerned about stains you can also have your furniture sprayed with a fabric protector by a professional company. Many of these companies offer free stain removal services if you can’t get something out yourself after they’ve sprayed your furniture piece.

How Do You Decide on the Arrangement for Your Sectional?

A sectional is a huge investment so you’ll definitely want to make sure that it’s the perfect fit for your room! Here are a few of my tips on choosing the specific sectional pieces/arrangement:

Work with a professional who will sketch out your room (bring dimensions of your space with you when you’re sectional shopping) and be able to tell you the different arrangements that will work for you. Typically the store that you’re buying your sectional through can help you with this.
Make sure you’re leaving enough walking space so that you can easily walk around your sectional and access the whole length of it. The limiting factor in the length of the short arm of our family room sectional was that we needed to leave enough space to get to the door to our deck – we rarely use that door so it wasn’t important for us to have a super wide pathway to it but we measured our bare minimum desired pathway width and used it to plan the length of that arm of our sectional.
Sources: Chandelier (satin bronze) | Rug | Acrylic coffee table (similar) | Coffee table tray (28″ square) | Gray linen tassel edged pillow cover | Cream tassel corner pillow cover | Gray lumbar fringed pillow | {TV console} (similar) | Chandelier (satin bronze) | Faux fiddle leaf fig tree | Basket for fig tree | Art prints (details in {this post}
Think long-term! This isn’t our forever home and since we plan to have this sectional for a long time, I made sure that I chose my sectional pieces wisely. For example, I could have saved a bit of money by buying what Lee Industries calls a “cornering sofa” for the short side of our sectional – it includes the end section, a middle section, and the corner all as one piece. However, if we were to move to another home with the opposite dimensions where the space was really deep but not very wide, there would be no way to make our current sectional work. So instead, for the short side of our sectional we bought what’s called a “one arm sofa” (it includes the end section + a middle section) and then we bought the corner as a separate piece. By doing this, in the future we can move the armless piece on the long arm of the sofa over to the short arm of the sofa to change the dimensions up if needed.
Measure the doorway that the sectional needs to get through to reach your room before buying it! In our old house, I’ll never forget having a non-returnable sofa delivered that was seriously only ½″ away from being too wide to fit into our room. I about died when the guy told me he didn’t think it would fit. I got lucky but it was a lesson learned!

That about wraps it up! I hope that you guys found this post to be helpful! If you have any questions that I didn’t answer, leave them in the comments and I’ll be sure to get back to you. Are you new to shopping for furniture online? You might want to check out my post about how to buy furniture with my ten best online shopping tips!

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If you want more inspiration for decorating your living or family room, also check out my post on stylish recliners – it’s surprising how many gorgeous options are available now!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! If you have any questions about where anything is from in our family room, you should be able to find them in the Source List below.