Ask The HOME Stylist: The Reasonably-Priced Couch

Because we have just as many bored, underworked friends working in the industrial design industry as we have working in the fashion-styling industry, we introduce the very slightest riff on our signature [cough] Ask the Stylist feature: Ask the HOME Stylist. [We are going to stop with the capitalization anytime now.] This will be very good, even if it's one more reminder of our total lack of creative thinking.

This all began when we received this very specific e-mail from a friend:

I need a couch. Any ideas?

Ah, guys. So to the point and direct. We e-mailed him back for more directions ("Preferably under $1000, modern looking, not ugly") and posed it to our HStylist, whose qualifications for the position include but are not limited to: styling interiors for magazine shoots, managing-editing a magazine that typically suggested buying $15,000 "seating units," and writing a book about furniture things. Obviously, this makes him wildly, unbelievably overqualified for our home stylist position, but apparently he's got some free time on his hands, and all the better for us.

Does everyone know that Bridget Jones is pregnant, at least in the version published every week in the Independent? This freaks us out no end.

Moving on, the Home Stylist!

"With a budget like $1000, you're pretty much limiting yourself to chain stores, although of course you'd want to consider a cast-off—design-savvy cities like New York and San Francisco have unbelievable treasures in the rattiest Goodwill or Salvation Army shops—or supporting a furniture student's prototype designs, though that route takes some work ferreting out industrial design programs and going to grad student open houses and stuff like that."

What I don't recommend is IKEA: Plenty of what they do is brilliant, but I've found their sofas lumpy and uncomfortable, and they wear poorly. This, though, is my favorite of their sub-$1000 range." The Lund Ekon, $549

"CB2 has a great line of under-$1000 sofas. This easy-clean microfiber sofa also comes in white and charcoal." The Standard Sofa, $999

"Also from CB2, this conveniently converts flat into a bed but has none of that unpleasant sofa bed vibe." Flip Flop Convertible Sofa, $999. (This is, annoyingly, we know, the first picture, at the very top of the page.)

"I'm a big fan of the no-cushion look, though maybe it's not for everybody." Oasis Sofa, $799

Keep reading below!