The Transformer Couch had all the features we could ever want on paper: modular, built-in storage, plush cushions, comfortable enough to nap on. That’s what we were marketed, but the reality is a product that was rushed to market. Some bad design decisions were made, some corners were cut. Here’s our review of our Transformer couch now that we’ve had it for a little over a month.

Manufacturing Issues

The first thing we noticed as we assembled our couch the day it arrived was that the manufacturing -particularly for the metal hardware- was all over the place in terms of quality. Washers weren’t punched out all the way or arrived broken, some screws fit and some didn’t, the threaded holes in the sofa bases weren’t consistently easy to screw into (it took ten minutes for a particularly bad one, trying to apply enough force and get just the right angle to reach the thread), and the most egregious issue, three of the sofa legs had holes in the wrong places, which don’t even fit the screws that came along! For the past month one of the sofa units has been sitting on the floor, pretty much unusable.

[insert image of mismatched legs]

Design Flaws

To understand how the Transformer Sofa’s design is flawed, you first need to understand how it’s built. The sofa consists of a sturdy box with rigid “pockets” in each corner inside the box. The back and armrests sit in these pockets. They don’t quite fit snugly, and so wiggle back and forth. Resting on top of these pockets is a large panel with some springs and padding which acts as the actual seat of the sofa.

Low-Quality filling

When you buy a sofa you assume (fairly, in my opinion) that it will be comfortable to lay across. This is not the case for the Transformer Sofa.