In this Pottery Barn York sofa review, I share about all of the options we selected for our sofa, why we chose Pottery Barn, how long we waited for delivery, if it’s met my high expectations, and what it’s like having an ivory sofa with three children under six years old. I’ll be updating this post after one year and two years of use with my honest opinion, so please come back to this post in the future for updates!
It’s embarrassing how exciting it was to finalize and confirm my Pottery Barn online order last August 2019. We had been waiting for the store’s 30% off “Buy More, Save More” sale to go live (which I’ve been told happens four times a year), and when I woke up to see the email that the sale had once again kicked off, I shrieked and told my husband “Today’s the day!” (Byyyye, money!)
Fast forward 10 weeks to the first week of November, and the two kindest men were walking into my house saying “Merry early Christmas!” with the sofa of my dreams! It was a happy, happy day! (How old am I? This must be real adulting.)
Today I’m eager to share a Pottery Barn York sofa review. We’ve been using and loving this sofa for nearly four months now, so we’ve had a good chunk of time to develop our initial opinions.
Pottery Barn York Sofa Review
WHY WE CHOSE POTTERY BARN: The answer to this is easy. We wanted a sofa that would hold up and look “like new” for many years, and we knew we would get that with a well-thought out Pottery Barn selection. My in-laws purchased a Pottery Barn love seat 20 years ago that they passed on to us about five years ago. Everything about the love seat held up well: the material, the bottom cushions, the back cushions, the bones of it (despite being moved with the military 4-5 times), etc.
A close friend of mine also owns a Pottery barn sectional that is six years old that looks nearly brand new. Despite how “hard” her two young kids are on the couch, it’s still incredibly comfortable and attractive. I didn’t want to roll the dice on any other brand. Pottery Barn was safe.
WHAT OPTIONS WE SELECTED:
- Pottery Barn York sofa
- 95″ wide
- Deep seat
- Bench cushion
- Slipcovered
- Ivory
- Performance fabric (Everyday Linen by Crypton Home)
- Slope arm
THE PRICE: How you customize your couch varies the price. Our fabric selection was one of the most expensive. As you see above, we paid just over $2k for this sofa, BUT we received 10% back in store credit using our Pottery Barn credit card. You can read more about our thought process with that here (we normally do not use credit cards but this was an exception.)
Because I ordered it online, we also received about 7% in cash using a program similar to eBates (I’m a member of it this specific program as a blogger, but I’m sure you can find other cash-back websites that pay you back after shopping online from Pottery Barn.)
This is a very large sofa, so we were thrilled with the price. Waiting until it was 30% off + getting 10% in store credit (to buy my curtains!) + getting rough 7% cash back from our online order helped make my dream sofa much more attainable.
Basically, if you play the Pottery Barn game strategically, it is very possible to get a quality sofa for an affordable price. You could actually get this exact-looking sofa with a non-performance fabric for right at $1k if you wait until the 30% off sale.
About our option selections
The biggest reason we selected the Pottery Barn York was because it allowed Jamie and I to both have the depth of the couch we like. He likes to sit up more straight with his feet on the ground and not feel like he’s laying in bed when he’s sitting on the couch. I, on the other hand, wanted a deep couch that I could sink into, sit indian style, and lounge on comfortably.
Check this out: The York lets you have the best of both worlds. The deep-seat style York comes with lumbar pillows, so when you sit against them, your feet will hit the floor and you’ll sit up more straight.
If you remove the lumbar pillows, you have a nice, deep couch like I prefer. I included these pictures so that you can tell the depth WITH lumbar pillows vs. without.
IT’S AMAZING.
We selected a slipcover over the upholstered option because I want to be able to clean it. We plan to have this sofa for 10-15 years, so obviously it’ll need a few good cleans. 🙂 I was worried about it looking wrinkled from the back, but as you can see, it looks great (at least I think so!)
About selecting Everyday Linen from Crypton Home in Ivory for our Pottery Barn York Sofa:
I had a whole vision for the way I wanted this room to look (you can read about it here), so I had known for a while that I wanted a light couch. I knew that might be a nightmare with kids, so I did a year’s worth of research. A YEAR! I’m not kidding. I read every single review I could get my hands on about every type of fabric. I could tell you about every fabric Pottery Barn offers. After reading hundreds of reviews, this was the fabric that scored a home run every time.
I had read that it is durable against most stains, and let me tell ya: we’ve tested in on accident many times. 😉
THIS IS SO GROSS and I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but our dog Teddy had a pretty bad #2 accident on it four days after it arrived. FOUR. The couch we had saved for for over a year, and he’s ruined it (OR SO I THOUGHT). I had gone out of town to visit my friend in Savannah, and he was a wreck without me (elderly dogs are so emotional).
When Jamie called to tell me about his accident, I thought he was going to tell me that Teddy died. That was his tone of voice. HA! So I was relieved it was “only” about the couch, but then I was all “OMG MY BRAND NEW COUCH, I’M GONNA KILL YOU, DOG.” I’ll give you a sweet picture of Teddy and NOT the picture Jamie sent me of his accident. It was bad. But I promise my couch is clean as a whistle now. You can sit on it, I swear. 😉
And Jamie cleaned every single bit of it up. Every bit. Before I even said hello to him when I got home from my trip, I went over to the couch to inspect. It looked perfect. I unzipped the fabric to check the cushion, and it was flawless. WOW.
I also spilled an entire glass of red wine all over this couch four days after these pictures were taken. And it came right up. AMAZING.
So if you’re going to get a light-colored couch, you HAVE to be willing to invest in quality fabric.
This fabric does occasionally have little “whispies” like this that I have to cut off, but no big deal of course. Otherwise this fabric is absolutely perfect. So soft and comfortable. We just love it.
Sometimes I like to move the lumbar pillows around and put one on each side near the slope arms. I like this look. 🙂
About the bench cushion:
We selected a bench cushion for two reasons: we liked the way it looked AND we liked that there would be less crevices to lose things, like the remote.
I read somewhere that if you take the back cushions off the couch, that the bench cushion is actually the width of a twin mattress (maybe a little bigger). I thought this was so neat! We could totally put a guest here and it wouldn’t feel like they were sleeping on a sofa.
My favorite part about the depth is laying down and snuggling my family comfortably. At the top of my priority list was a couch that we could all five be on together. This fits the bill!
REAL TALK: How it’s going with kids and a white couch
Because of the layout of our kitchen, eating area, and living room, there is no reason that the kids have to eat on the couch. None. Jamie and I only do because we are hypocrites. 😉 We have never allowed them to eat or drink anything in our living room in any of our homes, so this is not an issue. If for some super rare reason we let them eat in the living room, it’s usually just a bowl of popcorn and they have to sit on the floor in front of the fire in their sleeping bags. (People in general tend to respond well to expectations set before them, and this is one expectation we’ve always set that our kids don’t fight us on. They don’t know any different.)
The kids take their shoes off as soon as they come inside. This has always been routine. So shoes are never on the couch.
If they are doing crafts, playing with makeup, eating, etc. we always make them quickly wash their hands when they’re finished. Messy hands and faces have never been an issue.
The white couch IS an issue for Teddy… and me. 😉 Teddy is dirtier than we thought. LOL. So he leaves marks occasionally that we clean right up. It’s kind of like having white cabinets. You clean little marks more because you see them. Having dark cabinets doesn’t mean your cabinets are clean. It just means you can’t see the messes.
A white couch is the same. I think about our other sofa and how nasty it probably was. Now that we have a light sofa, we clean little marks as we see them.
And when we DO make a mess (ahem, my wine!!!), the fabric allows for a quick clean-up because it’s GOOD FABRIC.
More fun facts about our Pottery Barn York Sofa:
- You can flip over the bench cushion, the lumbar pillows, and the back cushions when fluffing the couch so that it all wears evenly.
- Sometimes feathers come out of the couch. Not a problem though!
A minute of buyers remorse:
I had buyers remorse the first night that we had the couch. I was so overly paranoid about it. I felt like I needed to wash all of my makeup off before I laid down on it, or that the kids needed to scrub down in the shower before they even sat down. I was like “We can’t live like that!” So I felt like maybe I made a bad choice with ivory.
But almost four months later, and we aren’t paranoid IN THE SLIGHTEST. The kids act like kids on the furniture, we are messy grown ups, and Teddy thinks the couch is the fanciest dog bed he’s ever had. We use and abuse the sofa, and it’s perfect. I think I mentioned that these pictures were taken after 3.5 months of use. It’s never been dry cleaned, and I fluffed it up about two minutes before the photographer walked in.
This sofa is the bomb dot com, my friends.
Want to see our entire living room overhaul? You can read that post here!
AS SEEN IN THIS POTTERY BARN YORK SOFA REVIEW:
Let’s chat!
What sofa depth do you prefer? Would you be more like Jamie and use the lumbar pillows or more like me where you like to curl up on the couch?
Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo