Where to buy beds and sofa in France

[Graham and Lynn]

We are in the process of buying a small house in Gard (30).  We won't be needing much furniture, but we do want to make sure we have a good quality bed and a good sofa or sofabed.

Having done some research both on the ground and via French magazines and the internet, it looks like the grandes surfaces like But etc will sell you very cheap beds and sofas, and at the other end of the scale there are people who will hand-craft bespoke ones - but at a price.  We are concerned that the very cheap beds will be bad for our backs, uncomfortable and fall apart in no time, and the hand-crafted ones seem to be hugely expensive.

In the UK you can get good quality but not outrageously expensive beds and sofa in places like Laura Ashley, Sofa Workshop, the Iron Bed Company and so on.  Does anyone know if there is a French equivalent for this type of "middle market" shop - and does anyone have recommendations about where to buy good quality new furniture in France in general?

Many thanks for any help anyone can offer,

Graham

PS - I know we could probably find nice stuff in second hand shops, auctions etc, but this will probably take time and what we are really looking for is a couple of items we can order for use immediately after we move in.

[Gyn_Paul]

How far are you from Montpellier? There's an IKEA there. Good quality

beds and bedding; you can doss about the showroom to your heart's

content until you find a combination of base and matteress which suits

you (Sir!).

[Blanche Neige]

Our beds came from BUT and they were "flat pack" and fairly reasonably priced. We (and many others) have slept in them over the years and to date we have have had no complaints.

[Agenais]

L'Eclerc home furnishings have some good beds / matresses, as do Conforama, bultex matresses are v good and mites can't live in it, which is pleasing to know.

http://www.monsieur-meuble.com/   have a good range of beds too.[|-)]

[Jc]

We bought a bed and a settee bed from BUT and have had no problems with either.They even lent me a van to get them home.

[Liz]

I wouldn't have any problem with BUT or Fly.  Bear in mind that it is usual to buy the bits of your bed separately.  The mattress, base and head board or suround will probably all be priced individually so it is easy to mix and match but a bit misleading to those of us who are accustomed to buying a complete divan.

Liz

[SC]

Unless you buy a 'divan' type bed, you'll be buying the frame, sommier, and mattress separately. The style of the frame, whether iron or wood, is a matter of personal taste, and provided it is strong enough, it won't affect your comfort, which will depend on the quality of sommier and mattress. Sommiers with greater numbers of slats are considered the more comfortable, and solid foam mattresses (latex being best) are better than cheap sprung ones (avoid) in our experience. 

Anti-acarien treatments probably release pestisides, albeit at a low level.

Sommiers also have holes in their metal frames that accept legs bought separately in the furniture shop or DIY (same, but cheaper), eliminating the need to buy a bed frame, especially if you follow the current fashion for hanging a couple of pillows from a rail on the wall as a bed head.

sc

[Graham and Lynn]

Thanks very much for all the advice so far - especially re buying things separately.  We are now building up a list of places to visit next time we are over!

Graham

[Opalienne]

Bleu Nuit is a specialst bed shop with a good range.   There may be one near you?

[Graham & Brenda]

We bought our bed (and the matching bedroom furniture) from a local company associated with "Mobiclub". The following link is for a similar one in your department.

http://www.mobiclub.fr/meubles-htm/localisation/30.htm 

There's a link on that page to Meubles du Littoral, which didn't work - but this one does

http://www.meublesdulittoral.fr/

The mattress came from Conforama and the slatted base from Geant.

 

 

[Suze01]

My two penneth.... I would never again have a sprung mattress (I have a chronic multi disc back problem).  Latex or Bultex matresses are fabulous.

[Graham and Lynn]

Another question - and now we are looking at the bed for our spare room! - if we buy a bed frame  (ie headboard, bed-end and side-pieces) from IKEA (we have seen one we like), could we fit a sommier bought somewhere else?

reason for question: we think we can fit the IKEA frame, once flat-packed, into our car, but the sommier will be too big for the car - however the local supplier (from whom we bought our main bed) could deliver us a sommier for free, whereas IKEA would charge a lot for delivery.  So we thought we could buy the nice frame from IKEA and take it home in the car, and have the local supplier deliver the sommier and matelas.  But only if the sommier will fit the frame!

[Gardian]

Graham & Lynn ..........

We live in the Gard and lovely as it is, it is a bit of a desert re furniture shopping - probably not much different to many other places in France, but there you go.

Our advice - buy in the UK before you leave and get it shipped over with the rest of your wordly goods. Advantage: you can test, thoroughly check before leaving + not much on-cost to ship. Disadvantage: no come-back if any problem. However, finding what you want can take ages & a lot of kms.

Email me for more local info if you want it.

Ian 

 

[Dick Smith]

Ian speaks sense. We bought most of our stuff from BUT, but brought a spare double bed over from England. It was no problem in an estate car, and we managed to get a mattress that was vacuum-packed and rolled up, so was very easy to transport. Great fun watching the mattress expand when we opened the packaging...

[Ron Avery]

No, you must buy all the parts of your bed from the same shop, don't let them fool you that 190 cms or 220cms is the same measurement in another shop[:-))]

Good bed shops in France? [:'(] No can't be any, but where do all those French get their beds from then?  Mind you,  I have just seen another convoy of French vans heading back to the Gard from the UK full of tested beds.

Tested????[8-|]  

[Graham & Brenda]

I know you don't need to buy all in one shop because we didn't! However we did our homework first and took a tape measure with us.........Sometimes the best value bed is not accompanied by the best value - or perhaps most suitable mattress for example.

 

 

[Graham and Lynn]

Thanks to everyone for their advice - we have got the mattress and are still looking out for a bedstead, but will probably buy the bedstead and sommier together to avoid any problems!

[Val_2]

Sorry but after bitter experience with B*T, I wouldn't buy so much as a bedside lamp in there again. You buy cheap, you get rubbish. Buy the best you can afford, not a sofa that lasts less than 18months and costs over half as much again to replace two seat cushions

[Dick Smith]

We got a leather sofa from BUT which has turned out to be very good value - and dead plain, too, and is perfectly OK after 4 years. Other stuff (a table and a couple of chairs, washing machine, a bed, sommier & mattress, microwave etc.) have all been fine. That's with light use, admittedly, but if that is what you want, why pay more?