What the labels mean

Almost every word below appears somewhere on this site, on a product you can buy today. None of them are explained on the page they appear on, which is the sort of thing you stop noticing once you have been selling sofas for a while. So: the labels, in order of how often somebody asks.

Settee, sofa, couch

They are the same piece of furniture. There is no size difference, no shape difference and no quality difference — it is regional, and mildly generational. Settee is the northern and traditionally working-class word, sofa is the one that won nationally and is what almost everybody types into Google, and couch is mostly American with a foothold in Ireland.

You will see us use both settee and sofa, sometimes on the same page. That is not carelessness. We are in Blackburn, where it is a settee.

Seaters, and what 3+2 means

A 3 seater is a sofa with three seat cushions, a 2 seater has two, and so on. The number counts cushions rather than adults, which matters more than it sounds: three adults on a 3 seater is a full sofa, not a comfortable one. If you regularly seat three, look at a 4 seater or a corner.

3+2 is not a five-seat sofa. It is two separate sofas sold together and upholstered to match — a three seater and a two seater — and it is the most common arrangement in a UK living room. They can face each other, sit at right angles, or go on opposite walls, and you can change your mind about that next year. Ours are on the 3+2 seater page.

You will also see 3+1+1 elsewhere in the trade: a three seater plus two armchairs. Same idea, more floor space.

Corner codes: 2c2 and 2c1

This is the one nobody guesses. The c is the corner unit, and the numbers either side of it are how many seats run along each arm of the L.

• 2c2 — two seats, corner, two seats. Counting the corner seat itself, that is a 5 seater, and it is symmetrical.
• 2c1 — two seats, corner, one seat. A 4 seater, and it is not symmetrical: one arm of the L is shorter than the other.

Because a 2c1 is asymmetric, which way round it sits in the room is a real decision — the trade calls this the hand. You choose it by picking the right code: 2c1 and 1c2 are the same sofa in mirror image, listed as two separate products, so the long arm goes on the side the code says. It cannot be changed after it is built, which makes it worth deciding from the room first.

High-back and scatter-back

High-back means the backrest is built tall enough to support your head and neck, with the padding fixed in place. It holds its shape, it needs no arranging, and it is the better choice if anybody in the house wants to actually put their head back — which usually means anyone over about six foot, or anyone who falls asleep in front of the television. Most of our range is high-back and says so in the name.

Scatter-back means the back is a set of loose cushions you arrange yourself. It looks softer and more relaxed, it suits a room you want to feel informal, and it needs plumping and re-stacking regularly or it starts to look like nobody lives there on purpose. Neither is better. One is lower maintenance and one is more forgiving to slouch into.

What sits underneath either of them — the frame, the springs and the foam — is a separate subject, and the one that decides how long the sofa lasts rather than how it looks. That has an article of its own.

Manual, electric, and “power”

A manual recliner reclines on a lever or on a firm push back through the seat. Nothing to plug in, nothing to break beyond the mechanism itself.

An electric recliner — sold across the trade as power reclining, the same thing — uses a motor and a handset. It moves at the touch of a button and stops wherever you let go, which a manual mechanism cannot do. It needs a socket within reach.

The reason to care is not laziness. The manual push needs a genuine shove through the back of the seat, and if the person the recliner is being bought for has a bad shoulder, a bad back or reduced grip, that push is exactly why a manual one ends up never being reclined. Ours are split across recliners and electric recliners.

The fabric names

Six words that describe how the cloth behaves, not just how it looks:

• Chenille — a soft, slightly nubby weave. The hard-wearing everyday choice.
• Plush velvet — a deep, even pile. The one that reads as expensive.
• Crushed velvet — pile deliberately pressed in different directions, so it catches the light. It hides very little.
• Naple and marble — pattern carried in the weave itself rather than printed on top.
• PVC leather — a leather-look surface that wipes clean in seconds. The practical answer with small children.

There are 70 colours across those six, all at the same price, and the fabric guide shows every one of them properly.

Made to order vs stocked

Made to order means the sofa is built after you buy it, in the size and the fabric you picked. Stocked means it already exists in a fixed size and colour and is waiting to be delivered.

Our fabric sofas are made to order and our leather ones are stocked. The difference is not only lead time — it changes your cancellation rights, because a sofa built to your own specification is the standard exemption from the 14-day right to change your mind. That is worth understanding before you order rather than after, and it has an article of its own.

Anything we missed

If there is a word on one of our product pages that we have not explained here, that is our fault rather than yours. Tell us which one and we will either explain it or stop using it.