Making Sure Your New Sofa Will Fit!

Making Sure Your New Sofa Will Fit!

12th Oct 2023

Posted by Alice Ewens on 12th Oct 2023

Sofa shopping can be stressful at the best of times, but there's nothing worse than realising your brand new couch won't fit through the door or in the space you've allocated for it. We've got a handy guide with tips and advice to make sure sofa is sitting pretty in its new home.

1 - Make Sure You Know Your New Sofa's Dimensions

sofa dimensions shown on Furniturebox website infographic
dimensions of sofa shown in table of funriturebox sofa listing below product description
key sofa dimensions shown - total depth, total height minus legs, total width and total height plus legs.

Be sure to check the dimensions of your new sofa before you purchase. All our Furniturebox sofas will have either an infographic as part of the photo carousel or a table beneath the description setting these out.

Make a note of these so you can check it will fit through/up your doorways, hallways, lifts and stairs.

Note that some of our sofas come with room-of-choice delivery option, and for these, our delivery drivers will unpack and maneuver your sofa to the spot of your choice!

The key measurements you'll want are shown in the bottom image here as these will be most relevant to getting your sofa into your home.

2 - Measure Up The Available Space In Your Room

room layout with green dashed line showing footprint of sofa marked out on floor

Now you have the sofa dimesions, make sure you've got plenty of space for it in the room you'd like it to like in.

Top Tip!

You can mark out the outline of the sofa on your floor using masking tape to get a clear idea of the space it will occupy.

3 - When Your Sofa Arrives, Unbox It Outside!

green icons for unboxing and assembly

It'll make life a lot easier if you unbox/unwrap your sofa before trying to get inside the house. Obviously, if it's raining, this might not be ideal. But, if it's dry, removing packing will make the sofa smaller and it'll be less of a struggle to get it through doorways. Remove all the cushions and don't attach the legs until it's in its chosen location - this will also keep the moving parts as narrow as possible.

4 - Measure Available Door Width

clipart style infographic showing doorway measuring and how to rotate a sofa to its narrowest side

Open your front door as wide as it will go. Measure the available width of the doorway, inside the frame, and accounting for the thickness of the door itself.

If the available space is narrower than the depth of your new sofa (length 'A' in the diagram), you might need to rotate it onto its back (where the height - 'B' - is a smaller number than the depth). This will be a narrower shape that will more easily fit through the doorway.

Top Tip!

Most uPVC doors can be lifted easily from their hinges and removed to make the opening wider. Open the door to a 90-degree angle and use something to lever the door up around 50mm - this will lift it from the hinge pin. To refit the door, it's just the reverse of this process. Be careful though, as doors can be heavy! Make sure you have help to do this.

5 - If You Need To Go Upstairs, Measure Available Stairs Width And Height

icon style infographic showing showing sofa on stairs

If the sofa needs to go upstairs, make sure you've got enough space! The width of the stairs needs to be wider than the narrowest side of your sofa. If you need to lift your sofa over a bannister to get it onto the stairs, you need to make sure you've got enough height above it for the sofa, too.

6 - If You Need To Use A Lift, Make Sure The Lift Is Big Enough

icon style infographic showing sofa upright in a lift

If you need to use a lift, make sure there's plenty of room inside for your sofa! Measure the opening between the door and the internal width/height of the lift before attempting to squeeze a sofa in there! You don't want it to get stuck.

7 - Make Sure Your Hallways Are Wide Enough For Your Sofa

icon style infographic showing the measuring of the narrowest part of a hallway.

Once through the front door, you need to make sure you've got enough space internally to accommodate the narrowest length of your sofa. Measure the narrowest part of your hallway, including skirting boards and furniture already in place.

Make sure you can turn your sofa! You might need to stand it up on one end and shuffle it or 'walk it' around a corner.

meme taking from sitcom Friends where characters try to move sofa up the stairs - Ross shouting 'Pivot!'

What Next?

mobile phone on desk showing Furniturebox instagram

We love seeing how our customers style their Furniturebox products so be sure to give us a follow on Insta and tag us in your product pics. We've also got links to lots of useful info there. And we've also got heaps more inspiration over on Pinterest so give us a follow there, too.