I Finally Found a Sectional That’s Perfect for Small Spaces (It Seats 5!)

Somehow, I went 35 years of my life without buying a couch. I inherited my sister’s perfectly good two-seat Crate & Barrel sleeper sofa at 22, and held onto it until I moved into a much bigger apartment with my husband earlier this year. That bigger apartment needed a bigger sofa. We kept the old one and put it in the guest bedroom, but we wanted something designed for our favorite activity: sprawling out and watching Ken Burns documentaries on PBS. That meant preferably something with more seating, and ideally a chaise.

Because my sister’s old sofa has held up so well (it’s 17 years old and still going strong!), I knew I wanted to get my new one from there as well. After sitting on quite literally every couch in C&B’s flagship store in New York City, we very happily settled on the Gather Apartment sofa with a chaise — and it’s made us happy literally every day since it arrived in June.

This super-comfortable, stylish sofa is part of the Gather collection, which is a best-seller for a reason. All the Gather sofas have deep cushions for relaxing that still manage to keep their shape (which is the true Goldilocks of a sofa, in my opinion). We opted for the Apartment size with an add-on chaise for added chilling-out benefits.

The key was the Apartment size option — we live in New York City, which naturally comes with some space limitations. We couldn’t have anything bigger than 110 inches wide, which ruled out a lot of great options that we sat on (we found the average to be closer to 120”). But the Apartment sofa and right arm chaise combined come out to 108” wide total, which was absolutely perfect for our space. We didn’t have to sacrifice the luxury of a chaise to accommodate the width of our living room.

Although it was on backorder and took two months to arrive, I fell in love with my sofa the second I plopped down on it (read: 30 seconds later). It was delivered in two large pieces, so there was no assembly, and the material and cushions were perfectly soft and plush from the get-go. We went with the Monet fabric in Champagne because we liked it so much on the floor, and I’m so happy we did. It’s a warm but bright neutral, and the nubbly performance fabric means my spill-prone self can easily remove stains with just Dawn dish soap and water.

I’m just 5’0” so I can lie down on pretty much any couch, but my 5’10” husband loves that he can fully lie down on the long part of the couch or comfortably stretch out his legs on the chaise. It’s roomy enough that we can both fully splay out our limbs on the couch at the same time, all while taking in Ken Burns’ latest documentary on Leonardo da Vinci (have you seen it? It’s great!).

The cushions are comfy, but they immediately bounce back after you sit on them (even after hours of lounging — don’t judge!), which helps it still look sophisticated instead of too worn-in. And the couch comes with two knife-edge throw pillows, which are great for back support or the dozens of naps I’ve taken on it.

We spent more than we initially thought we would on it (about $3,600 for both pieces), but we made room in our budget for it because we wanted something we could have for as long as the sofa bed, if not longer. Couches are usually a big price investment, and I’m honestly thrilled we ended up with this one (I may or may not have written this article while sitting on it!). Plus, if you decide to jump on buying it right now, it’s on sale!

Buy: Crate & Barrel Gather Deep Apartment Sofa, $1,486.65

This article originally published on Apartment Therapy. See it there: I Finally Found a Sectional That’s Perfect for Small Spaces (It Seats 5!)