Before you purchase, make sure it fits

“Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.” — Aesop, (c. 620 – 564 BCE) Ancient Greek fabulist or story teller, “The Fox and the Cat”

It’s happened to all of us. We see something in a shop or online and instantly believe: “This is a must-have.”

Unfortunately, most of us get so excited about having a new rug, sofa, lamp or dining room table to seat the whole family new that we don’t take the necessary steps to ensure that while it may be perfect, it may not fit.

Fortunately for me, I usually do think about those things when I shop for something for my home but not always first. For instance, I want to replace the furniture in my guest room and make it a TV-viewing/reading room rather than the room with a real bed. And while I do have friends and family who visit. they don’t come every week, and, for most of the time, the room sits empty.

Well, that’s a waste, right? And I would have a better view of my neighborhood from that room.

So I decided to shop around for a hide-a-bed sofa — one comfortable to sit on and one comfortable to sleep on. I tried out several in some of my favorite shopping spots and found one that fit the bill. Comfy for me to sit on, and, when I opened it up, the mattress was comfy too.

Luckily for me I didn’t just say, “I’ll take it.” I decided I needed to think a little more about it.

Well, I’m so glad I did. When I got home I went into the room and started mentally staging it with the new sofa and got really excited … until I walked down the hall and back into my living room. Oops! How in the world was I going to get that sofa into my new living space.

The hallway is short and it has a door on a different angle at the end so the sofa would have to wiggle in the hall door, spin around 90 degrees and get down to the bedroom. After making that walk several times I realized that there is no way I could get a sofa — especially a hide-a-bed sofa — into that room. So while it would be perfect for the room, it couldn’t get there.

Now I know this won’t apply to everyone (I live in a relatively small condo), but even in houses of different sizes, you must measure every detail of new furnishings. And, by the way, sofa beds are deeper than regular ones, so doorways and twists need to be a little wider.

Friends have purchased items and the delivery people have had to take them back because they wouldn’t fit in the space. While that may be OK, it’s still a hassle: dealing with getting your money back and still not having the new furniture you wanted.

One misconception we are all guilty of is that when you are in a furniture showroom, items look very normal and you visualize them in your homes. However, even if they are a fit, when you get a new piece inside your home, it will seem larger than it did in the showroom.

I can’t tell you how many friends and clients have shared these stories with me saying, “It looks twice as big here in the house.” Remember, you’re in a showroom. It’s bigger than your room. So it will take on a different look inside your home.

The best thing you can do before you shop for anything is to measure all of the space in your home around where you want the new piece to go. Measure your doorways, hall widths and how much space you have to fill with the new piece.

Rugs have similar issues. Make sure a new rug option — say for your dining room table — will fit under the table and have room on each side for the chairs to pull out. You don’t want one that will just fit under the table and each time a chair is pulled out it gets hung on the edge of the rug. Rugs are great “grounding” items for a setting in your dining room or sitting area, but they must be big enough to reach or accommodate the pieces in it.

Every showroom person or designer will have similar stories. Everybody wants new things for their homes, and showrooms are happy to sell things to you. But before you say “that’s it” make sure that, in addition to being a great new find, that it will fit in its new space.

Carolyn Muse Grant is a founder and past president of the Architectural &Decorative Arts Society, as well as an interior design consultant/stylist specializing in home staging. Send questions to creativemuse@cox.net.