Yes, I've sat on it and fiddled with it. This is a photo from just now after I futzed with it:

I would return. I know what would happen over time. I would be futzing with it everytime anyone was coming over and always regretting not taking there offer. BTDT on other things. 🙏c

I love your room and the pillows and covet your lamp. I always love everything you do @rubyclaire

I think it looks great apres-futz

Thanks mtn - mutual admiration society! Funny, you mentioned the lamp and I looked at it and saw that our housekeeper moved it in further than I like so I immediately had to go adjust a half inch. Nut job.

The seat cushions are too wrinkled for my taste and the back cushions look like they were made for a different sofa. I'd return it. But, many other people could just as easily live with it. If you return it, what do you intend to do instead?

If I return, I will likely start by exploring the reupholstery option again (the old sofa is sitting in my dining room - very much in the way!). Also, take another look at new options with the exact specs the room requires.

I too would return. I don’t like the circled areas. I have the same style of back cushions and it drives me nuts that the filling doesn’t fill out the corners. The seat cushion on the left looks a bit shorter then the others? It just doesn’t line up neatly across the front.

I am currently looking for a new sofa, but a tightback. I’m done with fluffing back cushions! 😂 Good luck!

I would return it and this is why:

Tear sheet of my sofa (not the fabric that I have, but what I have looked like this)

When it was delivered, it had a few wrinkles in the seat fabric. I asked the store owner about it. He said a few wrinkles were normal.

This is what it looks like today…and this sofa does not get heavy wear at all!

The wrinkles drive me nuts!

P.S. I covet your Brighton chairs

I’m just in awe of you People Who Can Keep a White Sofa Clean.

If you have a really good local upholsterer i would have the old sofa recovered, because the next one may come with similar wrinkles and incomplete stuffing.

It does look better post-futzing 🙂

Could it be slack due to not enough stuffing...?

So perhaps fixable?

I’m sorry you’re not happy. I would return it. The quality of the upholstey work is poor and will only get worse.

I'd also return and look elsewhere or reupholster what you have. I'm really sorry this happened.

I would not be happy and also would not trust them if they think this isn't a problem. Hopefully, you can have an upholsterer do a better job. They are sometimes hard to find, too.

@bbstx do you think you could have the cushion wrapped to fill out the cushion and eliminate the wrinkles? My last reupholster job I paid $$ to have the seat cushions made out of real latex foam. They are a little firmer than the usual upholstery foam and much firmer than down; not sure what yours is. Firmer is fine for me, as I and most of my friends are older and appreciate not sinking into the sofa. No wrinkles at all have formed.

Oddly, the product specialist said that the sofa was not what they would consider defective. Another red flag, I think.

I agree. Def do not give them a second chance if they do not think it was defective.

@Olychick, the sofa is 12 years old so I think those wrinkles are here to stay. I want to buy a new sofa but I will probably move in the next 5 years.

I would return it

Thanks all. My first instinct was to exchange but the product specialist did not inspire confidence so I will now likely return it. I don't like the prospect of being back at square one but I really feel it is the best option now with the help of my GW focus group.

@bbstx - Thanks for sharing your sofa example. I fear that is how this sofa will look in a year or two. Also, I bought the pair of Brighton chairs for $50 back in the 80's. Had no clue what they were but just loved the way they looked. Love them to this day.

Return it. If a new couch has a flaw such as this, you will always see it every time you walk into the room.

This is my pet peeve about ALL current 3-cushion sofas. Until sometime in the 1990s, the width of all three cushions was determined by the FRONT of the cushion, NOT the SEAT. Or the TOP of the back cushion (including the L and R part that goes over the arm.

At some point they made it equal Inside the Arms--not including the parts that wrap the arm , which visually makes for a skinny looking middle cushion. This drives me crazy.

I tried to even it up here. This is across manufacters now, but it didnt used to be that way.

rubyclaire take pictures that showcase all of your concerns and what you consider poor workmanship. Show any upholsterer you are considering and discuss in relation to the existing sofa about your expectations so everyone is on the same page.

Wow - that seems really bad. As you've decided, I too would return it. I'd never have any confidence in the overall quality of the sofa.

I have run into this also. The sample you sit on in the store is great. The one you order is never the same quality.

This is one of the reasons that reupholstering an old sofa costs more than buying an entire new one.

This is one of the reasons that reupholstering an old sofa costs more than buying an entire new one.

Pal - can you elaborate a bit for me?

In the first photo it doesn't look like the two outside back cushions sit properly into the arms. DId they sit properly after the futzing? I can't tell now as the throw pillows sit in front of the back corners. Or maybe they're supposed to sit up off the arms.

@rubyclaire, what is the brand of the sofa? I know you were looking at several, but I don’t remember what you chose.

Reupholstering does not always cost more than buying a sofa of the same quality new, technically, but most upholstered furniture is not of the same quality as it used to be, even if it is "quality"

All of the sofas/loveseats from my parents house are still in the family and they are so heavy that it takes several people to move them and you can actually stand on the back of several of them without tipping them or making the back wiggle. We stood on the back of one of them all the time to reach books on the top shelves behind the sofa.

I could easily pick up newer chairs and lift up the end of my newer sofa if there was something underneath. Older chairs are much heavier. The upholsterer offered to buy one of my sofas for the frame if I thought it was too expensive to reupholster.

The two upholsterers I have used would not let a recovered sofa out of their shop looking like your new one.

That said not all upholsterers are great. One of my siblings and I each have one of a pair. Hers is okay, it still does not have wrinkles or pulls, but I feel like her cushions seem slightly distorted somehow. Mine is better than new, but I probably paid close to twice what she paid. I could have gotten a new sofa for the same or even less. But it really would not be the same, exactly.

Is this a Charles of London style sofa with knife edged cushions on the back and are they attached instead of completely loose?

@bbstx - it's a Ballard Designs sofa so not anything really high end. Under $5,000. I have had the previous sofa for over 10 years and it needs replacing due primarily to the basketweave fabric pilling. Otherwise, the sofa has served me well. I need a sofa around 85" wide and 38" deep to fit this room. I do not want to spend over 5k and would like to spend less. I can find options in that range but finding showrooms with those styles has been exhausting. That is why I defaulted to the option I knew worked overall. Alas, here I am. If the reupolstery option does not seem feasible, I will set my sights on Lee and CR Laine to see if I can find something suitable.

@palimpsest - thanks.. The sofa is from Ballard's and the back cushions are loose.

@bfenton - sorry, I missed your question. Yes, the outside cushions sit better after fussing with them.

I did not pay what your Ballard sofa cost to reupholster my sofa at the more expensive of the three upholsterers I use.

Thanks, RC. Just wanted to know what to avoid.

Well reupholstering a sofa is supposed to be half the cost but maybe with the tariffs it comes to getting a new one I would do a sofa exchange make sure you get high density foam in the couch because that makes it better and I won't make the wrinkling that you're getting

@happyleg - Not sure what the difference might be, but this new sofa has "high resiliency" foam as a base.

I would not be happy with all that wrinkling.

A few months ago I ordered two pricey Hickory Chair sofas and I'm not 100% happy with the minor wrinkling I have. On mine it looks like they didn't stuff the cushions enough, as the seams are all straight/even.

I didn't do anything about it, because it would have been a year long ordeal to be that picky. Months to get approval, months to get a pick-up, months to do repairs and months to get it back.

I've decided that if it still bothers me in a year I will have my local (and very good) upholstery shop top up or re-do the fill in the cushions. They would have it done in two weeks and their labor charges are reasonable.

Just the way things are these days, even with custom orders. And they know most people are "beaten down" and won't bother being "picky", so they keep putting out sub-par work.

Here is my Hickory Chair sofa, the one I've been sitting on the most and didn't fluff-up.

Compare it to my Duralee chairs that are around 13 years old and were reupholstered by the local shop around 2 years ago. Tight and perfect fitting covers. The original fabric from the factory was a tight/perfect fit.

I just ordered a Ballard Design sectional so I hope the upholstery looks better than these photos.

Google said that they're both good mine and yours yours will have more bounce back mine bounces back though but it's more firm and maybe it's the material do you know the material the couch has maybe it's a natural thing for it to get wrinkled there

The fabric is a performance chenille type. I really don't know if it's prone to wrinkling or not. It certainly shouldn't come wrinkled like it did.

@RedRyder - which Ballard sofa did you go with? I really hope you have a great experience and mine is an outlier.

I don't know that there is an intentional production of sub-par work, but rather that they do not think it is sub-par. I think the bar has been lowered. But also, I think even among the trades there is a diminution of skills as time goes by. I think in many cases the person who has a trade is often not quite as good as the person who taught them, and they in turn teach another generation who is not quite as good as they are. I think it is an exceptional tile-setter who has the skills of an ordinary, decent tile-setter of the past. The guy who paints for me had some older guys working for him who could paint without leaving brush marks, he says he is not as good as they are, and he can't even teach anyone to paint as well as he does.

The family company who made my cabinetry decided to go out of business rather than lower their quality standards because they can't find people who are both good enough and reliable enough. (The solo contractor who has done a lot of work for me over the years is very good, but he is not successful because he isn't capable of working a regular work week. People who hire him have to accept that a project will drag on. He would have been capable in their shop but they wouldn't hire him because he's too slow.) Luckily they are close enough to retirement age that they can retire a little early.

And I don't think that it's laziness or anything on the part of the younger people, I am not sure exactly what it is, except maybe people who would have the skills want something a little more.

My Chanel's sweater didn't last just long so I don't know what to think

Good for you. Furniture is expensive, and you deserve to be satisfied with a purchase.

We have had an incredibly good reliable painter and an equally excellent contractor. The painter lost all of his original crew to age and infirmity. He is 60 and in great shape. He added his brother , and a nephew and another young man all younger. We have stopped using him because they have become so slipshod that it is alarming. I voiced my disapproval to someone and as it happens in a very close knit community it got back to the painter who said something to our excellent contractor. They all do jobs together and gossip.

edit: I should mention that since 2017 I have gotten the painter and our contractor a lot of very lucrative jobs because people have seen our home and the quality of the work done. That won’t be the case anymore.

Now when we have tried to get the contractor back to make a repair that is caused by the slipshod painter , wood not caulked so it is rotting, all we get are crickets.

I was upset but we have a great painter next door now , he does it as a 2nd job , to relieve his stress ( he’s a high school teacher) . He can repair and paint.

But everything Pal said is often , not always , true. In many cases each group that comes down isn’t as good . c

This is the sofa-chaise I ordered at Ballard Design in Nashville. Eton. The blue fabric was on the sample in the store and is the color I wanted.
Expected early March.

Was considering a Ballard sofa and then I saw their full page ad in a decorating magazine. It was a beautiful sofa. floral fabric, but it had fabric puckers on the front of the cushions. Puckers! Front and center in the advertisement. Ruby, hope your next sofa goes better. Red, hope yours is perfect. it’s very pretty.

Glad you returned it. At $1,500 it would have been a no. I have only purchased one thing from Ballards. An expensive desk that fell apart in less than three years. Sold it to a guy for $50. Will never shop there again.

So funny you mentioned that amount @1929Spanish-GW as it is exactly what I told the representative when she was suggesting a discount. I said I would not pay $1500 for it let alone the 30% discount they were offering. Bottom line, returning and starting over seemed the only viable option. I have a few Ballard's pieces in my home (side table and a couple of light fixtures) and they have been fine. I've been shopping with them since the paper catalog days and this is the first time I've been really disappointed. I hope RedRyder has a good experience but I just didn't feel I could risk an exchange. The good news is they have handled it to my satisfaction assuming the pick-up and refund go as promised.

We have a Ballard sofa in our bedroom that I ordered in 2010. It was perfect when new and still looked great when reupholstered in 2019. I am shopping for fabrics now to reupholster again. The secretary in one of our spare bedrooms that I use as my office is also from Ballard, it was made entirely in Italy and I waited many months for it in the color I chose. We also have a glass top rattan side table and a very heavy granite and iron coffee table that was part of the Miles Redd collection. And various other things — mirrors, tole flowers, baskets, etc. I have been very pleased with everything— good quality that has held up over time. But we also live near Ballard’s founder’s home and I have always had their stores where I could check things out in person. The first thing I bought from Ballard was in the 1980’s when Helen Weeks was sending out Xeroxed stapled sheets of products to friends of friends. I’m sorry to hear (and see!) that their upholstered furniture has gone so far downhill. I think over the last ten or fifteen years there has been a more rapid decline in furniture quality which seemed to begin in the 1990s.

I ordered tortoise flatware from Ballard a few years ago, and it was awful. Looked awful, and some of the fork tines were stamped out incorrectly and would have cut your tongue if you used them. (!?) I have only bought Parsons chairs from them many years ago (like 30ish?) , never any real "furniture."