You Don’t Need a Forever Home to Buy a Forever Sofa
Posted posted on November 10, 2026
The best bits of a home have a habit of following you around, and even a teensy rented flat can contain things you plan to keep for the rest of your life…
Estate agents talk about ‘forever homes’ with great confidence, as though it’s a hard and fast rule that at some point in adulthood one finally reaches the precise dwelling from which one will never be dislodged (right number of bedrooms, bit of garden, dream utility room etc).
The removals van departs never to be seen again, and permanence begins!
The myth of the forever home
But life isn’t as simple as that and has a habit of taking all sorts of unexpected twists and turns, for better or worse or just for different. It might be for work, for love, for family, change in tastes, or any number of unpredictable reasons. Houses which once seemed the perfect size can become much too small, or indeed large, with surprising speed.
And yet, through all this moving about, ‘home’ is actually remarkably portable. Familiar pictures pop up on new walls, and a lamp you bought in your twenties acquires a weird authority and must always be placed in a prominent position. These little things have a magic ability to become home in whatever building you happen to live, because they are yours.
Things that gather a bit of biography
This is surely one reason why well-made things are so satisfying. Longevity is good for the environment and your finances, but there’s also a more personal pleasure in an object lasting long enough to carry a bit of biography around with it. People can become extremely attached to a dining table, for example, because over the years it has accumulated Christmas lunches, birthday cakes, homework, wine rings and all the rest of it.
Even if you’re renting and moving about quite a lot, you’re still creating memories and making a home, and you might say that the permanence is less about the actual bricks and mortar than the taste you carry from one place to another, the way you arrange a room, the people who occupy it and the handful of things you keep choosing to take with you.
Such ideas have been at the back of our minds while we’ve been making some of our newer, smaller sofas, such as the Mini Margot(above) and the lovely little Edie(top and below), whose straight back means she can be set right against a wall.
They’re perfect for flats and smaller rooms, but they certainly don’t feel like temporary furniture for a temporary stage of life. They are still made as proper bona fide Schplendid sofas, with the same craft and concern for comfort, quality materials and longevity.
A small sofa can be surprisingly adaptable, and what might fill the sitting room of your first home might end up in a bedroom or snug years later. Eventually it may even be appropriated by a child leaving home, who will probably regard this extremely well-made piece of furniture as simply the old sofa, which is perhaps the final proof that it has done its job.
So perhaps the ‘forever home’ is not necessarily the biggest house you own in your life, but something you assemble bit by bit as you go, carry around with you, and even pass some of on.
You Don’t Need a Forever Home to Buy a Forever Sofa
The best bits of a home have a habit of following you around, and even a teensy rented flat can contain things you plan to keep for the rest of your life…
Estate agents talk about ‘forever homes’ with great confidence, as though it’s a hard and fast rule that at some point in adulthood one finally reaches the precise dwelling from which one will never be dislodged (right number of bedrooms, bit of garden, dream utility room etc).
The removals van departs never to be seen again, and permanence begins!
The myth of the forever home
But life isn’t as simple as that and has a habit of taking all sorts of unexpected twists and turns, for better or worse or just for different. It might be for work, for love, for family, change in tastes, or any number of unpredictable reasons. Houses which once seemed the perfect size can become much too small, or indeed large, with surprising speed.
And yet, through all this moving about, ‘home’ is actually remarkably portable. Familiar pictures pop up on new walls, and a lamp you bought in your twenties acquires a weird authority and must always be placed in a prominent position. These little things have a magic ability to become home in whatever building you happen to live, because they are yours.
Things that gather a bit of biography
This is surely one reason why well-made things are so satisfying. Longevity is good for the environment and your finances, but there’s also a more personal pleasure in an object lasting long enough to carry a bit of biography around with it. People can become extremely attached to a dining table, for example, because over the years it has accumulated Christmas lunches, birthday cakes, homework, wine rings and all the rest of it.
Even if you’re renting and moving about quite a lot, you’re still creating memories and making a home, and you might say that the permanence is less about the actual bricks and mortar than the taste you carry from one place to another, the way you arrange a room, the people who occupy it and the handful of things you keep choosing to take with you.
A sofa that comes with you
Such ideas have been at the back of our minds while we’ve been making some of our newer, smaller sofas, such as the Mini Margot (above) and the lovely little Edie (top and below), whose straight back means she can be set right against a wall.
They’re perfect for flats and smaller rooms, but they certainly don’t feel like temporary furniture for a temporary stage of life. They are still made as proper bona fide Schplendid sofas, with the same craft and concern for comfort, quality materials and longevity.
A small sofa can be surprisingly adaptable, and what might fill the sitting room of your first home might end up in a bedroom or snug years later. Eventually it may even be appropriated by a child leaving home, who will probably regard this extremely well-made piece of furniture as simply the old sofa, which is perhaps the final proof that it has done its job.
So perhaps the ‘forever home’ is not necessarily the biggest house you own in your life, but something you assemble bit by bit as you go, carry around with you, and even pass some of on.
Meet the Edie and Mini Margot: smaller Schplendid sofas for wherever home happens to be at the moment.
See also:
De-schittification starts here