Measure your doorway before you pick a size

Most sofas that don’t make it into a home are stopped at a door, not by the room. A sofa that fits the wall still has to get through the front door, up the stairs, along the hallway and around the corner into the room, and each of those has its own number.

Here is what we ask everyone in the showroom to measure before they choose a size. It takes a tape measure, a notepad and about fifteen minutes, and it tells you which size will go in and which one only looks right on paper.

1. Find the narrowest door on the way in

Walk from the curb to the room the sofa is for and measure every door it will pass. Open each door fully and measure the width from the inside of the frame to the face of the open door, not from frame to frame: the door itself takes an inch or more. Then measure the height of the opening. The narrowest door on the way decides; write it down first.

• Width with the door fully open, inside the frame
• Height of the opening, floor to the top of the frame
• The hallway or landing right behind the door, wall to wall
• Anything in the way: a radiator, a handrail, a light fitting

A door that only opens to 90 degrees, or one with thick hinges or a storm door in front of it, is often an inch or two narrower than it looks. If a door comes off its hinges easily, measure the frame alone too, and write both numbers down.

2. Compare it with the diagonal depth

Every sofa page lists a diagonal depth next to the width, depth and height. It is measured from the top of the back to the front edge of the seat, and it is the number that matters at a door: tipped on its back with the legs off, a sofa passes any door that is at least that wide.

The Lowell Sofa is 36″ deep and 32″ high, but its diagonal depth is 30″ in all three sizes, so it goes through a 30″ door. Its legs unscrew in a minute, which takes 6″ off its height for the turn through the frame.

“Measure the narrowest door, not the widest wall. The wall is almost never the problem.”

Owen Pratt, delivery lead

3. Check the stairs and the elevator

On stairs, the door is rarely the trouble. The tight spots are the headroom where the stairs turn and the size of the landing, because the whole length of the sofa has to swing around there, held up at an angle. Measure the width of the stairs, the height from a step to the ceiling at the lowest point of the turn, and the width and depth of the landing.

In an elevator, measure the door, the inside width and depth, and the diagonal from the bottom front corner to the top back corner. A sofa often rides standing on its end, so the inside height and that diagonal matter more than the floor.

• Stairs: width, headroom at the turn, landing width and depth
• Elevator: door width and height, inside depth, the diagonal of the car
• Apartment buildings: ask whether the freight elevator needs booking

4. Lay it out on the floor

Once you know it gets in, check that it fits the room the way you live in it. Mark the sofa’s width and depth on the floor with painter’s tape and leave it there for a day. Walk around it, open the doors near it and pull out the chair you will sit in. Most people find the outline tells them more than the measurements did.

5. When one number is tight

You have three ways forward. Choose a shorter size: the 74″ Apartment Lowell has the same 23″ seat and the same diagonal depth on a shorter frame. Choose the Lowell Sectional, which comes in four pieces that go through the door one at a time and bolt together in the room. Or send us your numbers and a photo of the door and stairs, and we’ll tell you before you order.

With White-glove delivery, two people carry the sofa to the room, take the legs off and on again and set it where you want it. They can’t make a door wider, so the numbers still come first. What each delivery covers and costs is on our shipping and returns page, and you can write to us with the measurements any time.