We Bought The Domicil Sofa

5-15-13  Wed.

      On Sunday, Leona and I bought the sofa we saw on May 4^th, the Domicil sofa, from a company in Germany (assembled in China) has excellent features on their patented sofa modules. We bought the longer three-person, 252 cm (99 inch [8.2 foot]) sofa. With the soft white tweed fabric we wanted (which happened to be the most expensive) and a 104sm (41 inches [3.41 foot]) square hassock, it was 134,919NT ($4,497us.) We gave a 67,460NT ($2,248us) deposit. It would take more than two months (Aug. 17^th) to deliver the combination we want with the color and fabric we choose. When we get back from Brooklyn, they will loan us a sofa until ours arrives! The sofa has “… adjustable backrests and armrests, a solid timber frame with cross banded plywood, a no sag spring seat base, d/40 high-resilient polyurethane foam with fiber wrap seat cushion, robust elastic webbing back support, D40 high resilient polyurethane foam with fiber wrap back cushion, solid timber ht 55mm Wenge finish feet, and selection from Domicil’s exclusive leather and fabric selection.”

      The sofa is the single most expensive item we’ve bought for our new home -16% of our $30,000us interior decorating budget - perhaps the single most expensive item we’ve ever bought in our lives besides our car and houses! Still, it would have been cheaper than the AC/DC pinball machine I was contemplating getting. It is $1,000us more than the mattress and five hard-wood furniture items we got; entertainment center, coffee table, end table, office desk, and two bookcases. It is the same cost as the four Hitachi air-conditioners we bought. With a domestic sofa costing around $1500us with a Lazy Boy recliner we considered costing $1200us, we’re paying $1800us more than we would have, anyway, for, by far, the most comfortable sofa we’ve sat on in Taiwan, indeed, anywhere!

      Because of the size of the sofa, a technician has to come to our condo this week and see if they can get the sofa up to our fourth floor unit! The elevator height is 7 feet so the 8.2 foot sofa won’t fit in there. The sofa is 58cm deep (22.83 inches [1.9 feet]) and 40cm high (15.74 inches [1.31 feet]) .There would be two options; use a crane (which they’d rent) and lift it four floors to our patio and bring it in through our bedroom; the enclosed patio and kitchen having 27” door thresholds while the bedroom threshold is 32” but has a radical right turn into the short hall into the dining area/living room proper. The bottom line is if they can’t guarantee the sofa will fit into our condo unit, the deal is off.