I don't get how it's online only if you saw it at the store. The store should be able to order it for you and get it sent to you, possibly without it being special order. Also, the special order is really a matter of inventory. If you're willing to wait a few weeks, the quick ship option might open back up again once they have the current set of orders fulfilled.

Just a warning: We ordered furniture from West Elm and they said it would be in within a week, then two weeks, and now it's been almost two months and our living room is still bare!

I found that our Dunham Sectional is too cushy. The pillows are really fat, and I feel that it takes up too much space when I try to sit back. I do not even use the two arm pillows because it takes up so much space. Otherwise the quality and down filled cushions are great.

@Pi, I understood her to say that she saw the sofa in the store but not the sectional.

I don't have experience with West Elm furniture (as I'm in England) but I have a very similar sofa from DFS
http://www.dfs.co.uk/sofas/corner-sofas/season/left-hand-facing-4-seater-pillow-back-chaise-end-sofa2/
which my husband and I love. It is perfect for watching films or just lazing about as we can both stretch out comfortably. And it fits 4 when company come so good use of space. Would very much recommend this style of sofa.

Are you near an EQ3? I think there's one in New York, and one in the Bay Area. We bought a very similar sectional from them three years ago, and it was very well-priced. It's holding up well, used by teens in the family room so gets a lot of use.

We have Dunham's friend, the Henry sectional. Cons of Henry, that I assume would be cons for Dunham, as well: (1) The "sections" of the sectional don't fit seamlessly together, and have no way to be attached together, so the whole thing never looks lined up and neat. And yes - I have an area rug that most of the feet sit on, so it's not just slippery hardwoods at fault. (2) The unattached cushions are very attractive to my pets as perches, and do not like to return to their box-y shape when pets are shoo-ed away.

We have the Lorimer sofa, which also comes in a sectional and like it. It's very comfortable and the arms are perfect for propping your head on (once you've pushed the cat off, they love the flat arms). We were able to sit on the sectional version in the store before ordering our sofa - the construction is pretty much the same.

As for delivery, I got an email on a Monday that the sofa had shipped and by the following week was wondering where it was. I called the help number, was put on a very long hold, and then disconnected. A few hours later an email shows up with a customer satisfaction survey. Filled it out and a day later a very helpful rep called me, explained how the shipped works (train to truck to local distribution) and then gave me 10% off the sofa because of the disconnect issue. That nicely covered the cost of delivery. I don't know about returns, but if you get to the right tier in their customer service, the people are great. The 8-10 wks was really about 3-4 wks.

I bought the West Elm Blake sofa this summer in a standard fabric and it arrived fairly quickly. At first I thought the cushions were overstuffed and uncomfortable to sit on. In about two months' time the down settled and I didn't feel like I was perched on top of the main cushion. One thing that has bothered me a bit is that the long cushion you sit on was designed to have a square edge, yet with further wear the edge has collapsed and is more of a rounded edge, but just in the middle. Near both arms it's holding shape. I've been better about rotating that cushion to aid in even wear. If this is something that would irk you, I'd possibly reconsider.

Im in Canada and i have the Kivik sofa from Ikea - only reason i mention this is this too has the detached cushions.. and i have to agree how they almost instantly lose their shape. im always fluffing and rolling (yes rolling) them back out, and they only hold for a day or so. be careful with those cushions. while comfy, its a pain to keep those nice edges edgy.

I have Crate & Barrel's Davis sectional (in "Darius"), which looks similar but with shorter legs. I highly recommend it.

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/davis-2-piece-sectional-sofa/s189289

I've also had MUCH better luck with Crate & Barrel's customer service than with West Elm's, which is important with this type of purchase.

I worked at west elm for 2 years, let me share some secrets!
None of the sectional pieces will attach to other pieces, but you can get a small bracket at any hardware store to attach them to each other, I have had customers do this to great success.
8 -10 weeks often turns into 10-12. Once the sofa is ready, it's shipped to the local courier service for your area who then calls you to set up delivery to your home.
To keep the pillows "sharp" in the stores, we fluff them and flip them CONSTANTLY. As soon as you get up, straighten and fluff the back and base cushions into the shape you want them to stay.
Sign up for emails and/or catalogs, you'll likely get a coupon in the mail or by email.
Order in store with an associate if you have other concerns; this will give you a buffer should anything go wrong - ie, the store can call customer service on your behalf.
If you can wait, in August/September west elm will have a (usually 15% off) promo on sofas and upholstery.
Happy couch hunting!

I have had the west elm Walton sectional (I think it was the predecessor to the Dunham) for several years now and it has held up well, I don't have any real complaints other than the sections don't fully lock to each other.

the delivery seemed very convoluted, though, so we drove our truck back and forth the 20 miles to the store for the pieces.

My brother has this sofa and it's a lumpy beast. It looks very sleek online, but as others have noted, doesn't stay that way. The odd thing is, it looks like a big nest of pillows in person, which ought to be ideal in terms of comfort, but I found it unpleasant to sit on. That said, I think Room and Board's sofas are very overrated in terms of comfort. Consider Mitchell Gold, which is probably $500 more upfront but worth it if you consider it'll last you ten years instead of five. Good luck! Ack, I'm so glad my couch hunting is behind me. It obsessed me all Fall.

I'm not sure I understand why you are getting a sectional if you don't like sectionals? My husband and I love to cuddle up on our sofa and watch a flick and we don't have a sectional, just a nice long and deep sofa. Am I missing something? Is your space too narrow for a long sofa?

I hear you about being on a budget. I didn't have a sofa until I was 30 because I couldn't afford one, and my first was a second hand one. Over the last ten years, I have acquired two sofas and bought one. I have done EXTENSIVE research on sofa shopping. I because I had little money, and am now still quite frugal, I want a sofa that is going to last. The folks at Room and Board told me that I should not expect one of their sofas to last more than 7 years. I'm sorry but that is just not a good buy. My cousin who is a designer told me that if I want a sofa that is going to last, get one that has been around for 20 - 30 years. It will be more sturdy than any sofa made today. She was right. We got a sofa for free on craigslist and paid about $800 for it to be reupholstered (solid color that will match wherever we live the next 20 years.) I could not be happier. It is comfy, good cushions, the thing is a tank, and gorgeous.

So now I have two rules of thumb for sofa purchases:
1. If you can get a good deal on a 30+ year old sofa and find a reasonable upholsterer, that is the very best bang for your buck.

2. If that is out of your price range, find a Rowe sofa. They are about as disposable as most any sofa you will find these days, but my friends and I have had good track records with comfort and the cushions holding shape. Many, many stores carry Rowe so you should be able to shop around and find them at a wide range of prices. And they are now manufacturing Mitchell + Gold too.

Go with Crate and Barrel or CB2 instead. Not only are their sofas amazing - and kiln dried - their customer service is on the ball, always. West Elm has been kit or miss for us, both in quality of product, and in quality of customer service (but I can't speak to that couch specifically, as my couch is the Piazza sofa from CB2)

We changed our minds on a West Elm table due to the rediculous delivery cost and jerking us around. We ordered the table (not in stock) and 2 chairs (in stock in store). So we were going to take the chairs home that night, then have the table delivered. They charged 2 shipping fees, but weren't clear on this when we placed the order in store (one fee to ship to the store, then one to deliver to our home), so we were like, uhhh, no. We'll come pick it up. Also, they said it would arrive in a week, which was good. Then they were like, oh yeah, it'll be in the STORE in a week, but to have it delivered from there, you have to set up a time with FedEx, and that'll will be another 2 weeks, which didn't work as we would be on our honeymoon then. So yeah, that sealed the deal for us picking up ourselves.

We walked away from the counter feeling pretty annoyed, then went back and told them we'd pick it up. It was just a pain because we asked all these questions before ordering, then, after we paid, they were like, ok, once it's in the store then you have to do this, then this, and this fee. So in order for them to change the order, they had to cancel it, then we had to call back the next day and "repurchase" 24 hours later so that the original order had time to be canceled. I called 24 hrs later, and the table had been sold out/discontinued (this was during their 15% off dining sale). What the f. So, we also had the 2 chairs we bought in store, now with no table. So we had to drive back to return those too. Sorry, long post, but, it was a huge pain, and we won't use them again. So keep an eye out on the dual delivery fees. And I'm pretty sure it's FedEx and not them, so they don't set it up or anything. I'm ok with buying accessories with them, but, the large delivery-required fees and pain in the butt factor canceled out any deal we were getting.

We actually bought this couch last October. Saw it online, went into the store to order it even though you could online at that time. We wanted to make sure the pieces were right because it wouldn't fit in our room if they weren't. An employee was really helpful with the ordering process... but....

The couch took six week to arrive, which was fine, except that the order was wrong. The delivery company isn't West Elm, it's another group, so they had no idea what we were looking at. They tried for an hour to convince us it was what we ordered, we knew it wasn't. We called customer service with the delivery guys still there, in case the right couch was still in a warehouse. It wasn't. They didn't take it back with them because they said they weren't sure if we were in the wrong. So we kept the ill-fitting beast of a couch in our room unused, piled in a corner and got back on the phone with customer service.

After two weeks of constant phone calls back and forth, West Elm finally admitted (or discovered) that the error was on their part. A SKU mistake on the pieces that had been made already had been identified, and everyone who ordered the couch online (whether in a store or not) had received the wrong pieces (unless they ordered the 'mistake' arrangement by accident). Anyone who ordered a version of the sectional other than what we got was disappointed ... so the customer service woman we worked with assured us that they'd begin to make the right version and get back to us as soon as she could with delivery dates.

We're not sure why, perhaps because a lot of people ordered the couch, it's taken this long to get a delivery date. We ordered the couch originally on Oct. 4, 2012. We are getting the right couch delivered this Saturday, Feb. 9, 2013. Apparently. Honestly I'll believe it when I see it. Though the customer service team has been very apologetic, it's been a HUGE inconvenience for our family. This happened over the holidays when we were supposed to have guests, and I also had a baby during this time. Not having a working living area has been a huge problem. We've had to spend the better part of four months dealing with this on almost a daily basis. The wait, apparently, was for them to figure out their warehouse / SKU errors, and then make the couch ... but I still can't understand how it could take so long, and despite apologies, my husband and I still don't really get why it took so long to right the wrong.

The best part is that we bought the couch with a gift card. Reason being is that we got cash as a wedding gift, and wanted to write a check for the couch. (Long story). They wouldn't accept a check so we were advised to buy gift cards with a check (not sure why you can use a check for that, but not the couch, but whatever), then purchase the couch with the gift card. We did that. Now that we are in a situation where we're asking West Elm for some compensation for our trouble and inconvenience, they're saying "Well, with these kinds of things we're required to do tender-for-tender" which means (you guessed it) they want to compensate us with a gift card. 1) Not really in the mood to spend more money with them, 2) how does that compensate me? by giving me value I can only return to them? 3) they are only offering (at this point, we're going to argue about it) to reimburse us for shipping at this point. And yeah, shipping was expensive but at this point it's insane to offer us something so faint.

And don't even get me started on the gift card thing. West Elm got a check from us, we are asking for a check back. The gift card is a symbol of the money we gave them via check, so this 'tender for tender' business has me about to lose my freaking mind.

We'll see how it turns out. And all of this to say that the reason there might not be any reviews is because no one has really received a legit version of the sectional yet? From what we can tell it's a beautiful couch and very soft (what I'm reading above re: pillows going flat is probably true). I'm sure we'll love it when we have the right arrangement, but since Oct of last year, we haven't been able to tell.

Good luck!

I don't have this or any other West Elm sofa, but I have an upholstered headboard from there and it's great.

My sectional is similar to this and I agree with the others that the back cushions (if they are not attached) are hard to keep looking tidy, and cats love to sit on them and squish them. The upside is you can take the cover off and wash them easily. But I don't know that I would buy this type of sofa again.

Thank you all for your great ideas ! Search is still on :) Mitchell Gold has some great options for sofas, they don't have many sectionals but I have been eyeing the Reese and Dominique (slipcovered) sofas. What a bummer about West Elm. It's just too much of a risk for almost $3k. Room and Board had so many great sofas last year but they've discontinued most of them :/ I have the Davis sleeper from Crate and Barrel in the guest room and although it doesn't get a ton of use it looks great! So Crate and Barrel is always an option! They do have great customer service.