I’m another big fan of Room & Board, but unfortunately, you have to head up to Costa Mesa to look at their furniture. I have a lot of things from them, and they’re our favorite. We also just bought (a year ago) two new couches from Ethan Allen. Someone suggested that we look into their sofas, and at the time, they were having a huge sale, and the prices and quality were amazing. They were, by far, the best value for the quality they offer, and they have some nice new, clean designs that worked well for us.

Every once in awhile, I’ll buy something from Restoration Hardware (they have an amazing “clear the decks” sale a couple times a year and you can also check the website for clearance stuff), and the quality has always been outstanding. Still, by far, our preference is Room and Board, both for style and quality.

Our home is 90% hardwood floors, so I didn’t have much bargaining power when we did a whole house renovation and had to find a place to buy/install carpet. We were more focused on buying a certain type of carpet made with the SmartStrand fiber, which I believe is only offered through Mohawk and/or Karastan. I did A LOT of research and found that it holds up the best for our needs (pets, active kids, etc). It hasn’t let me down, and we’ve had it for a year. Still looks great. Nothing seems to cause a permanent stain.

I believe Home Depot sells a limited number of the SmartStrand Mohawk carpet styles, but we went to a store in Encinitas, MJ Flooring, which our contractor suggested, for a larger selection. They did a fine job and seemed to have decent prices, but again, we only did a few rooms so didn’t really have much bargaining power.