While hunting for a modern sectional to purchase for our home, we noticed that it was hard to find reviews on West Elm sofas and the ones we did find were a little concerning, so we thought we’d leave a review that may be helpful to you in case you are furniture hunting. We’ve also gotten LOTS of questions on Instagram about our living room sectional, so we’re detailing all our thoughts in this blog post!
Here is our review of the West Elm Andes Sectional after using it for almost 2 years.
** NOT sponsored. Affiliate links are used in this blog post, but all opinions are our own.
STYLE: modern & minimal
It has a slim and low-back profile, so it doesn’t look bulky at all or take up too much space visually. This kind of style would be great in a small space or apartment since it has an airy and minimal look.
In our home, we have the sectional up against the wall, but it definitely looks amazing from the back too especially because of its low-profile look.
As far as style goes, it was exactly what we were looking for, and still love the look today! We absolutely love its modern and minimal style and were immediately drawn to its unique sleek, black metal legs.
FABRIC & WEAR: GOOD
There are many fabrics to choose from and you’re able to order free fabric swatches from their website. We ended up choosing one of the “quick ship” options in TWILL STONE which is a light gray color.
So far, after almost 2 years of daily use and entertaining guests every week, we’re happy to report that the fabric has worn very well!
As with ANY couch, rotating the cushions regularly helps it to wear evenly and we highly recommend doing this for both the back and bottom cushions. Otherwise, the cushions may start to look a little saggy in areas where you sit the most.
We do have a cat who likes to sometimes use the sofa as a scratching post and amazingly, it has never snagged! We did notice a little bit of pilling on just a few areas, but because the stone twill fabric has a heathered look to it, it’s not noticeable.
The Andes sofa does have removable cushion covers, which came in handy when we needed to wash the cover after our friend’s dog peed on it. After a machine wash on delicate, the material still looked as good as new.
We’ve been very impressed with how the fabric has held up and it really looks great even after how much it’s used every day!
COMFORT: 8 out of 10
At first, we were hesitant about the low back and whether the couch would be comfortable since it looks like it COULD be on the stiffer side. We tried out some sectionals from other stores at higher price points that had the sleek modern look that we wanted but were super stiff and so uncomfortable. This is NOT the case for the Andes!
Even though it’s not down-filled, it’s still comfortable to lounge around in because of how deep it is. The “standard” depth of 40 inches is pretty deep, to begin with, and they do offer an EVEN deeper version (46 inches), but the standard would probably be deep enough for an average-sized person.
We both rank it 8 out of 10 because of the low back, we wouldn’t say it’s the BEST movie night kind of couch or anything, but it is plenty comfortable. We would honestly say that it has the perfect balance between looks and comfort!
When the sectional was first delivered, the cushions were pretty firm but they did soften up pretty quickly after some breaking in.
SEATING: fits 7 people
We wanted to make sure there was plenty of seating for entertaining and love that the Andes L-shaped sectional fits 7 people comfortably! One thing that we really like is that instead of separate bottom cushions, both sides of the couch have one large cushion (no one likes to sit on the crack!)
CONFIGURATION:
There are many configurations to choose from, making the Andes very customizable for your needs!
WHAT WE SELECTED:
- Andes 3-Piece L-Shaped Sectional
- Fabric and Color: Twill, Stone
- Size: 108″ Length, 40″ Standard Depth
- Leg Style: Dark Pewter
- Sectional Depth: Standard (40″)
COST:
For this configuration, we got it on sale for $2,638 (before tax & shipping). Because the look was exactly what we wanted and due to its ability to seat a lot of guests, we felt it was really worth the cost!
- Discounts & Sales: Look out for the West Elm sales which happen pretty often.
- Shipping: Note that you do have to pay for their white glove delivery where they will unpack, assemble, and remove packaging material for you. This added $249 to our total cost.
We were tempted to spend less for a different sectional to save money, but we’re so glad we ended up allocating more of our living room budget to the couch and saving in other areas of our design.
IN SUMMARY: HIGHLY RECOMMEND!
Your sofa is often the largest piece of furniture in the living room and really impacts the feel and look of your home.
If we had to pick our favorite piece of furniture that we’ve purchased for our home, we would choose our sectional! The Andes has the perfect balance between style, function, and comfort. From our experience, the stone twill fabric has been pet-friendly and has worn very well even after daily use and entertaining guests on a weekly basis.
We hope to be able to take our West Elm Andes Sectional to our future house too (we love it that much)! Please let us know if you have any questions in the comments below!
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PIN & SAVE FOR LATER:
do the legs have something to prevent floor scratching on the tips (feet) or is it bare metal?
What color was the fabric on the couch? Was it frost grey twill?? What’s the color on the wall? Love the color on the wall
We have stone twill on our Andes (I don’t believe they have this exact fabric color anymore though!) And our wall color is Sherwin Williams Repose Gray, which is like a light greige 🙂
Thanks for the great review. Is it possible to replace the couch legs for different ones (wood)? Are they standard screw-in legs?
I really like the rug you picked out. We are considering the same L-shape size for Andes. Do you mind sharing the size for the rug that works with 108″ length?
We have it in 8×10! It wouldn’t be wrong to also size up from 8×10 if you think that would work better too. But minimum I would go is 8×10 🙂
We have had Andes sectional for about 2 years. The covers are holding up great since we don’t have any animals or kids, but the inserts are not hardy enough. After one year or so they started to sink. I wanted to replace the insert but I was told by the customer service that they don’t have it.
I thought that West Elm sofas last for long time…
Thank you so much for this review! Buying a couch is so daunting, especially when a cat is involved. Can’t wait to make the purchase.
Such a beautiful house!! I love your style! Thank you for sharing your 2 year review. Do you have any issues of the sofa metal legs scratching your hardwood floors? Thank you!
Does the block the bottom of your window? We want to get this sofa but it would come up about 2 inches higher than the bottom of the glass of our windows. Do you have any advice? Thanks!
For us, the top of the back sofa cushion does block the bottom of our glass windows by like 2-3 inches but honestly I’ve never noticed before until you mentioned it! I wouldn’t worry about it – 2 inches would be very minimal so no biggie. I would say go for it! 🙂
I agree with West Elm’s customer service being great! I got the Andes sectional and the fabric I chose didn’t even hold up for 8 months. West Elm was really good about an exchange (of course, you have to go through a process and show proof of concerns, etc.). The fabric has a lot to do with it. Had the CHENILLE TWILL in frost grey — STAY AWAY. We don’t have pets and keep things nice, so it definitely wasn’t a problem of how we cared for it (although our sofa seemed like it was at least five years old by this time!). It just didn’t wear well and the fabric stretched. I am choosing a PERFORMANCE VELVET for our next one and have faith it will make a huge difference! Another tip is to take home swatches and do a spill test on them, rub them, clean them and anything else that way you have an idea of how it will handle the test (wished we had done this before we ordered our first andes). With the chenille twill, liquids soaked through, it piled up and stained very easily. With the performance velvet and the performance washed canvas the liquids didn’t soak through immediately…only after a minute is when you started to see it and the stain (which still came out after a wipe). I also added random things like red wine, avocado and hot sauce to the swatches and wiped them clean. The performance fabrics made a huge difference and handled better than other swatches of fabrics (of course, some performance fabrics are still better than others, so test ALL fabrics you are considering). Seems silly, but these tests will really help!
Good to know about the performance velvet! I was definitely curious about the other fabric options and thank you for sharing these great tips!
Could you please share where the rug is from? <3