Lost amid all of my recent posts about San Francisco is the fact that the tedious saga of our sofa and coffee table finally ended a few weeks ago. It took three months for the pieces to be delivered! Meanwhile, the presence of our nine-year-old Ikea Pöang chairs in the main living area of our new house almost drove me insane. (Yes, I’m fully aware that this is a first-world problem.) But good things come to those who wait:

At last, some decent seating.

The main lesson learned? If you’re ordering a custom made sofa, add at least two weeks to the estimated delivery time. In our case, we ran into a delay when our original fabric selection ended up on back-order, and we scrambled to choose an alternative.

Why go with custom made? Well, we did a lot of research and decided it was worth spending the extra money to get a high-quality, durable piece of furniture in the fabric and finish of our choice. After all, we’ll be sitting and lounging on it nonstop for however long we live here.

I can now rest easy.

What else is good to know? There’s a “double rub count” (ha! not a dirty joke) for upholstery fabrics. It’s a measure of fabric strength. 3,000 double rubs equals one year’s worth of use. A fabric categorized as “heavy duty” has a double rub count of 15,000. What’s our sofa? Heavy duty, duh. (There’s no way something “light duty” or “delicate duty” would ever survive.)

Jensen “basketweave” fabric in Mineral.

Product sources:

• Sofa: Edward 79″ Sofa designed by Dwell Studio, purchased through Creative Classics.
• Throw pillows: Dwell Studio and Unison.
• Coffee table: Hepplewhite solid cherry, purchased through Creative Classics.
• Floor lamps: Pottery Barn.
• Ottoman: Crate&Barrel Stow 17.5″ leather storage in Persimmon.
• End tables: Crate&Barrel Pedestal indoor/outdoor side tables in Graphite.
• Rug: Crate&Barrel Bronson rug

P.S. As you can see from the middle photo above, I didn’t end up buying the Manolo Campion photo to hang above the mantle. The dimensions just weren’t quite right. The search goes on.