apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Have you tried to get the couch in the house through a window?
Would it fit? That's a pretty common solution here, where I live.

I second the 'through a window' suggestion. (Or, even better, a sliding balcony door.) Also, and this might be a clueless question, but from the look of your diagram/picture, it appears that the problem is with the length of the sofa, not the width? In which case - i don't understand the problem. Why would you have to bring the sofa in vertically?

hmmm....i've never seen a couch moved in vertically. most couches are brought in horizontally. i had a 9 foot sofa brought in (and taken out) without issue through a regular doorway. we did have to take off the legs however. this is easy as the legs of most sofas unscrew.

There seems to be plenty of space in that hallway to tip the sofa and bring it in. As abby said, you might have to unscrew the legs, and if it's still a tight fit you could take the door off the hinges to give you a little more room.
Only very short loveseats might be brought in standing on end, the way you have pictured.

I once had a very narrow landing and had to ask the guy across the hall to open his door, too, so I could get my sofa in my apartment. I've also lived places where in the stairwells the banisters could be removed to get large furniture and appliances up the stairs.

I say tilt the sofa if it will fit. It's pretty easy to do and will save you some money.

I like the tilting idea, but I'm missing a bit of information here: why doesn't it fit through the door? Too wide? Not enough clearance in the hall? Inside or outside?

Now you said that its an antique so use this advice with caution, but I was so excited about this I wrote this in my blog when I moved, I'll paste it here:

How to fit a large couch into a small door... take it apart.

I'm moving this weekend, and have been stressing out about what to do with my couches - how do I move them, how can I sell them, they are heavy, they are huge. I'm on the second floor and they took about three hours and 5 guys to get them in the apartment.

Well I dont give up easily, and I think I kinda have a habit of taking stuff apart. So I flipped the 8 foot leather monster onto its back and started unbolting. It took only 7 very accessible bolts and 2 bolts that took about 5 minutes each to unscrew awkwardly. The entire couch is held together with 9 bolts. Its now in four pieces. It was easier to disassemble than most Ikea furniture, and the best part is - now I can definitely fit it into my new apartment. Forget about the stress of moving it OUT of this apartment, now I made a whole new option for myself and I'm going to reassemble in my new pad. I estimate it will take about an hour to reassemble the couch and love seat.

If you are ever faced with this dilemma - try it out.

Disassembling a couch is not always an option, especially with older pieces of furniture which are not normally constructed with removable hardware. Before resorting to this radical solution, carefully measure your hallway, door frame and apartment entry. Since doors can be easily removed from their hinges, only the doorframe dimensions are important.

Because of the basic design of a couch, even one which is a little too wide for the door can be brought into a home by carrying it diagonally through the doorway. The key is getting two or more people together who are physically strong enough to carry the couch and manipulate it through doors and apt entries. If manipulation won't work. Then windows can be removed, sliding doors taken out of tracks, and scissors lifts employed to deliver furniture through balcony doors and windows. I would consider or attempt all these things before I would disassemble my couch.

Thank you to everyone for the comments and info!

The window is not an option unfortunately.

I first had movers tell me the couch would not fit and then had a crew of friends ready to attempt it, but after taking the measurements, I got the same bad news. I do not have the measurements here @ my office, but will post them with photos this weekend.

The feet are removable and measurements were taken without feet.

Problem: narrow hallway, small landing.