American Signature Sofa Review

American Signature Sofa Review

I’m going to do this review no matter how embarrassing it might be for me. I think it’s important to see and hear these kinds of things prior to making a big purchase like that of a sofa or an entire set of living room furniture.

When we bought our house January 30th, 2014, we planned to upgrade a lot of our furniture. We wanted to create a coastal/beachy feel to the entire house. I had planned it out and pinned a lot of inspiration on Pinterest in preparation for the big move. It was the first house we owned since moving to Florida in 2012, so we were very excited.

I had fallen in love with a deep sofa I had found on Pinterest and set out to find a similar one that I could purchase locally. The only thing I could find that would fit our new theme was the Marley collection at American Signature Furniture store. We had one not far from us, so I was ecstatic. We went to the store and tested it out. It was a very comfortable couch and seemed to have durable upholstery.

 

Seemed being the operative word.

We purchased the sofa and were happy to find that it was on sale for $50 less. We rented a Uhaul to bring it home. We finally set up our new sofa and were so happy until we discovered a flaw in one of the pillows. The back side had a big tear in the fabric around the zipper. I just let it go when I really shouldn’t have. I just didn’t want to go through with the hassle of returning it for just the one pillow. I sucked it up and figure it would be ok.

Over time, the couch began to soften and we settled into it nicely. Then we started noticing feathers coming through the fabric often. It became irritating, especially when the quill would poke you. Once again, I chalked it up to the newness and figured it would stop eventually with a little more wear and use.

Nope.

Removing the pillow covers to wash has become on of the most daunting home cleaning tasks I have. Feathers go EVERYWHERE when I do and I have to hurry and vacuum before the dog eats them – because she likes to. It’s also just messy and annoying.

I also noticed a spot on the sofa where my husband often lays his legs across. I tried to vacuum it up, but I think the oil from his skin set in the dirt over time, so I decided to use the chemical spot treatment cleaners they had given us when we bought the sofa. This just spread the spot further around and amplified any other amount of dirt that might have gotten into the fibers of the sofa. I thought maybe it was just where it was wet, so I waited for it to dry. It was still there once it dried. It only continues to get worse over time, no matter how hard I scrub.

I have since decided that it needs to be professionally cleaned. Hopefully that would do the trick, but I have yet to try.

The other bad thing about this sofa is the way the upholstery has a basketweave, it catches small hairs very easily and they get trapped and are hard to remove even with the vacuum on its most powerful suction mode. The fabric has also pilled very badly, which makes it look very worn and aged and even more disgusting.

Over the past 2.5 years, the zippers have broken, the fabric has pulled away from the zippers, it has pilled, it is filthy, it sprays feathers everywhere, it clings onto hair and dirt and it’s embarrassing when we have company over. This all started just a year after having it. The sofa itself is still quite sturdy, but the materials are terrible. The seat cushions aren’t removable, otherwise I would wash them. Only the back cushions and pillows are removable and they look nice and clean and make the dirty sitting area look even more gross up next to it.

Always inspect the display very closely and look into the type of fabric the upholstery is made of. Make sure it isn’t coming apart anywhere or pilling. I already know what I will be replacing this sofa with and I can’t wait to purchase it. We just don’t have extra money at the moment because we’ve had a lot of car issues this year and we live on one income, which isn’t substantial.

Before I walk you through the photos, I would like to share another disconcerting issue that contributed to our negative experience. When I received my receipt via email, it gave me another person’s name and address. I was so worried that my couch might be delivered to someone else. And I was worried that someone else received the wrong receipt with MY name and information on it.

Here is a side view of the couch. I tried to get photos that portray how I saw it in the lighting with my own eyes. As you can see, the back cushions are nice looking and the bottom ones are filthy.

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The slight dirty spot I had seen and attempted to clean with their solution was toward the edge and just continued to grow the more I tried to clean it all.

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This is so embarrassing to show.

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We received this pillow like this.

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This is how the fabric is supposed to look, so you can see that we are clean people and I regularly care for them.

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You can see the pilling in the crack of the couch.

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Truly mortifying. We cover it with a sheet when we have guests. You can see stray feathers on the bottom left side of the image.

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Pillow cover right next to the bad spots.

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Pilling.

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We received this pillow like this as well.

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Don’t look at the seat cushions and it looks fine!

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