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Two-thirds of Americans bought furniture in the last year, with the highest rates among Gen Z, urban residents, and parents, according to research cited by First Chair.
Sofas are one of the biggest ways that spending shows up, and they’re not cheap. A good one starts around $2,500, and once you move into the high end, retailers like Arhaus average $3,000 to $8,000, with some sofas running over $10,000.
But there’s another sofa brand worth knowing about before you spend that kind of money: What A Room.
While Arhaus has been in business since 1986 and operates over 100 showrooms across the U.S. with a Contemporary design style, What A Room is a newer, primarily online company that specializes specifically in custom upholstery sofas, with a single showroom in San Jose, California.
Both brands will get you a high quality sofa, but they take different approaches. Arhaus furnishes every room in the house and offers a set menu of customization within each collection. What A Room does one thing, custom sofas and upholstery, and builds every piece around your specific space and fabric choice.
Here’s how What A Room vs Arhaus compare.
Sofa Quality and Construction: Arhaus vs. What A Room
Arhaus’s frame and cushion construction varies by collection and is built around a set of pre-selected options, while What A Room standardizes its frame construction (kiln-dried wood, corner blocks) but lets you choose the cushion fill and cover based on how the piece will actually be used day to day.
Arhaus sources upholstery work out of North Carolina and partners with woodworkers in Italy and Mexico. Cushion construction comes in three types: eco foam core, spring core, or down blend, with high-density foam as the default across most of their sofas.
What A Room builds its frames from kiln-dried, solid wood joined with corner blocks for added durability, and backs every frame with a limited lifetime warranty. Cushions are filled with high-density CertiPUR-US certified foam, and buyers can choose from several firmness levels depending on their comfort preference:
- Soft, medium, or firm: Dacron wrap over foam
- Trillium: a premium down-alternative blend enveloped around the foam
The foam itself is made without ozone depleters, heavy metals, or toxic flame retardants, and all of What A Room’s sofas comply with California’s flame-retardant chemical restrictions.
Custom Sofa Options: What You Can Actually Configure
Arhaus offers configuration within a collection rather than true customization. On some sofas you can choose the fabric, depth, and width; on others, fabric is the only option and the shape stays fixed. Either way, you’re working within a predetermined set of specs, though you can order up to five free fabric swatches at a time to help you decide.
Across the collection, Arhaus offers over 600 fabrics and 90 leathers, but that range applies to the brand as a whole, not to any single sofa, and details like arm style, leg style, and overall proportions usually stay fixed no matter which fabric you pick.
What A Room is a little different. Pieces like the Daphne Sectional, the Davis Bumper Sectional, and the Milton Corner Sectional aren’t fixed products with a handful of configurable options. They’re built to order, with fabric, sizing, and layout decided by the buyer before production starts, drawing from 165+ fabric options paired with full control over sizing, layout, and leg style.
If you’ve got an odd-shaped room, a smaller space, or a sectional configuration that doesn’t match a standard floor plan, this is where the two brands diverge the most. What A Room also offers twelve free fabric swatches, more than double what Arhaus provides.
Fabric quality is a strong point for both brands. Both offer machine washable options, though Arhaus has fewer of these than What A Room, and Arhaus offsets that with an included cleaning kit. What A Room’s fabric is built with kids and pets in mind and is free of PFAS/PFOS and other “forever” chemicals.
Ordering Process, Timelines, and Return Policies
Arhaus leans on its showroom and design service. You can walk into a store, sit on the furniture, and work with an interior designer either online or in person, starting with a consultation and moving through mood boards, swatches, and renderings.
What A Room doesn’t have that retail footprint, apart from one showroom in San Jose, California, where Bay Area shoppers can check out fabrics and sofa styles in person. Everywhere else, the process happens online: design services, renderings, and fabric swatches before you commit, followed by white glove delivery once the piece is built.
Arhaus also offers white glove delivery, so that part of the experience is a wash between the two. What you’re really trading with What A Room is the ability to sit on a floor model in exchange for a piece built specifically around your space, fabric choice, and lifestyle.
If seeing and touching the product before you buy is non-negotiable, that’s a point in Arhaus’s favor. If you already know your space and want the sofa built to it rather than picked from what’s on the floor, or need to work around an unusual layout, that’s where What A Room shines.
Timelines follow a similar split. Arhaus’s in-stock pieces ship fastest, but anything made to order runs closer to 14 weeks. What A Room’s production time is 4 to 5 weeks across the board, since every order starts from scratch as soon as you sign off on the design. If you’re working toward a move-in date or timing delivery around anything specific, that’s worth factoring into your decision.
Return policies matter more once you’re spending this much on a single piece. Arhaus gives you 14 days to return, with a 10% restocking fee. What A Room’s window is longer, at 60 days, as long as the piece comes back in new or like-new condition with no stains, scratches, signs of wear, or alterations; its return fee is 15%, plus pickup charges that vary by location and get quoted before you commit.
Neither brand refunds original delivery fees, and neither return policy is free, but What A Room gives you significantly more time to live with the piece before deciding.
Sofa Warranty and Longevity: What’s Actually Covered
Longevity and warranty aren’t the same, even though they’re usually lumped together and talked about as one thing. Longevity is about whether the piece is still solid in ten years, basically how long is this sofa going to last. Warranty is about what happens if something goes wrong before then.
On longevity, Arhaus backs its sofa frames and spring support systems with a lifetime warranty, and also offers a paid protection plan on top of that. What A Room also backs its frames with a limited lifetime warranty, plus one year of coverage on cushions and fabric.
Arhaus’s paid protection plan is the Worry-Free Protection Plan through UNITERS. It’s a five year plan, priced by merchandise total, and it covers accidental damage: stains, rips, burns, and one incident of pet damage, in addition to mechanical or structural breakdowns. It’s an add-on you pay for separately, and it needs to be purchased before delivery is scheduled. Talk to your designer about exclusions before purchasing.
The broader point, a strong structural warranty tells you how the brand feels about its own build quality, and a strong protection plan tells you how much accident coverage costs on top of that. Ask your designer or sales representative about both, no matter which brand you’re comparing.
Sofa Material Sourcing: Global Craftsmanship vs. Local Manufacturing
Sourcing is worth a look too, since it shapes both the price and the piece you end up with. Arhaus runs its Green Initiative around sustainably sourced, reclaimed, and recycled materials, and works with artisans it travels to find. Upholstery gets built out of North Carolina, with woodworkers in Italy and Mexico handling other pieces of the collection.
It’s a global supply chain built around craftsmanship and sustainability at the same time.
What A Room keeps its build closer to home, out of Los Angeles, and puts the same care into the fabric. Free of PFAS/PFOS and other forever chemicals is important for yourself, your kids and pets on the furniture daily.
Neither approach is more “right.” One is about a wide network of craftsmanship pulled together from around the world. The other is about keeping the build local and the materials clean. Which one matters more probably depends on what you’re already paying attention to when you shop.
Arhaus or What A Room: Which Sofa Brand Should You Choose?
Neither brand is a bad choice, and the numbers back that up either way. Both back their frames with lifetime warranties, both offer online and in-person design support, and both manufacture in the U.S. From there, the decision comes down to how much you want to customize, how fast you need the piece, and how much you’re willing to spend.
If you want a whole room furnished by one brand, want to sit on a floor model before buying, and can wait up to 14 weeks for a made-to-order piece, Arhaus is built for that. You’ll have access to over 600 fabrics and 90 leathers across the collection, but on any single sofa, your choices are usually limited to fabric and sometimes depth and width, with shape, arm style, and leg style fixed.
If you want a sofa or sectional built entirely around your space, from an odd-shaped room to a specific fabric and leg style, What A Room is the better fit. You’ll get full control over sizing, layout, and 165+ fabric options, a 4 to 5 week production window, and a 60-day return period versus Arhaus’s 14 days, all while paying less than Arhaus’s typical $3,000 to $8,000 range.
Sofa shopping is a real investment, not an impulse buy. Before you decide, measure your space (including doorways and stairwells for delivery), order swatches from whichever brand fits your priorities, and confirm production and delivery timelines against any move-in date you’re working around. Get those three things right, and either brand should get you a sofa that lasts.
