Making A Rain Barrel: Simmons Monaco Euro Convertible Sofa

Good: It was easy to set up, just screw in the feet. Easy to raise and lower into the 3 positions. The 3 positions are great. Looks real slick and modern. I can tell it will be easy to clean. Cheaper and less complicated than a futon.

Negatives: Though the sofa back moves up and down, the bedframe is solid and stays put. This means that in the sofa position, the frame really sticks out in back, so you can't move the thing all the way back against the wall. There is a wide space between the sofa back and the wall - around 8+ inches - unless you make it lean really far back, too far back to be what we consider comfortable.

The other negative is that the chaise position thing is set at the right side of the sofa (your right if you are sitting on it). In our case we needed the head of the chaise to be on the left side to work seamlessly for our needs. We have had to therefore turn the whole thing around to convert from sofa to chaise, to have the chaise in the proper position in the room. Not fatal since the thing is one whole piece and not so heavy, so it's relatively easy to turn (unlike a wood futon). However, it's an inconveience.

Truly unfortunate: The info says "100% bicast leather" -- I'm no expert, I just assumed it was a low-grade leather to be so cheap. After we got it in the house, we all noticed a chemical smell, like a cheap plastic toy. It's day 3 and the smell is just as strong. So I started to wonder. Well, turns out it's not actually leather. It's basically plastic/vinyl, might as well be straight PVC in my opinion. The part that is "leather" (20% of the total product, I saw after looking up the term) is the inside part of the sofa cover, i.e., the part you don't come into contact with. On top is basically shiny plastic. Having the "100%" in there is highly misleading, just as using the term "leather." Anyway, I read somewhere that the smell "dissipates" usually within a week. I can only hope that's the case. I am/we are nonetheless quite disappointed to have bought a vinyl sofabed when we thought we were getting a leather one. In retrospect, it's not such a good deal, especially having to endure thefumes(How harmful? I don't know!).

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