The Anabei Sofa Claims to Be ‘The Only Washable Sofa — Inside and Out.’ Only, It Isn’t.
Part of the draw for the Anabei sofa is its easy assembly, and for me that was the most — and nearly the only — successful aspect of the sofa’s design.
The two-seater arrived in two boxes, each holding the components to construct a seating unit and weighing about 60 pounds. Each box contained a collapsed powder-coated steel frame, a set of curved bars to support the sofa’s seat back and arms, compressed foam pillows, and fabric covers, along with cross braces, support cables, and a square of polyester fabric that the instructions call the “seat deck.”
The instructions were fairly simple to follow, although unboxing and assembling took a colleague and me longer than Anabei had projected, about 20 minutes for each half (we were very proud until we heard that the company estimates five). But putting the sofa together also revealed some concerning design details concealed under the hood (or rather, fabric).
To begin, we unfolded the steel frame, much as you would a camping chair. From there, I started to have misgivings.
The next step was to attach the square of polyester fabric (the “seat deck”) to the frame and then pull the fabric covers (what the instructions called the “duvet”) over the top. What struck me at this stage was the absence of any substantive suspension system.
Traditionally, sofas use springs or webbing to ensure even weight distribution and support, with padding and upholstery layered on top, resulting in a seat that is ideally both comfortable and supportive, and capable of holding up against sagging.
Not so with the Anabei sofa. Instead, the seat’s suspension system consists of a sheet of polyester fabric that you connect to the frame with Velcro-like strips and polyester straps, which acts like traditional webbing. This component, combined with the steel-pole frame, makes the sofa more like a textile-wrapped scaffolding.
After framing, you cover the sofa with a thinly padded slipcover (the “duvet”) and then put on a final slipcover with the upholstery of your choosing. Top that with foam-filled pillows for the seat, back, and arms, and you’re done.
In the absence of any springs, the seat cushion ends up shouldering the work of both springs and cushioning. We tested the company’s slightly more expensive Supportive Contour Tech cushions, which have a denser memory-foam core and are intended to be more supportive than the base model. I found the cushions, which expand from their shipped compression to be about 7 inches thick, to be reasonably comfortable — if you sit exactly at the center spot of each cushion. Anywhere else, and the poles make their presence known.
You may be even less content if you don’t spring for the cushion upgrade. We didn’t test the standard option, but Reddit boards are filled with evocative criticisms of the sofa’s firmness, with one person likening the experience to sitting “on a park bench with a thin cover of leaves.” Another common complaint is that the cushions slide away from the frame, leaving a cavernous gap between the seat cushion and the steel frame.
