Our Couch Potatoes furniture is built with love right here in Austin, Texas. Not only is your sofa homegrown, so is our company! Like many of our employees, owner Brian Morgan is a born and raised Austinite. We believe in giving back to the community, creating comfort, and working with purpose.
FURNITURE MADE FROM THE HEART OF TEXAS
JOB CREATION & MANUFACTURING
LIFE-CHANGING FURNITURE
As a part of our Second-Chance Initiative, we work with the Texas Transitional Center, a network of regional reentry centers designed to provide a structured, supervised environment to help reintegrate ex-offenders into society. We believe, that if you have breath in your lungs, you have a purpose. Maybe they were never given the opportunity to gain a skill, so we try to give them that opportunity.
MADE IN AUSTIN
Our furniture is 100% built locally from the feet up. There’s not another furniture store in Austin, that’s doing it like we are. We try to source from local places too, because we know when we buy locally that the tax dollar stays here locally too.
FAMILY-ORIENTED
Many of our employees include their family in the business, and we support creating jobs for them. During the pandemic, many people were laid off and looking for a job. At one point we had four generations working in our stores, which created a supportive and secure work environment.
QUALITY
DESIGN
Austin’s Couch Potatoes does not sacrifice quality for affordability. Here are some of the materials and machines we use to guarantee you are getting a piece of furniture that will hold up throughout the years:
- Hardwood as the name implies is wood all the way through with nothing added to it. A solid piece of material that is often sought after within the case goods and dining furniture categories (such as Amish furniture) or higher end furniture.
- Plywood is thin layers of wood veneers glued together in a rotating grain to promote strength and flexibility. Plywood because it is multilayered doesn't suffer from the same long-term issues that hardwood does with the expansion or shrinkage of the wood due to moisture of temperature changes. We pretty much use exclusively plywood and it makes our furniture better than most competitors as they will often cut cost on materials.
- Particle board is an engineered wood that is sawdust and small wood chips added with glue or resin and then pressed together. Generally, particle board has low strength, low durability, and will expand when exposed to moisture. When you want to build better furniture, you upgrade to plywood and when you want to save cost you downgrade to particle board.
- CNC isn't a wood but a machine we use to cut the plywood, that comes in wood sheets from the lumberyard. The CNC machine is so precise with the cuts that a human hair is less than the margin of error. This allows us to use jointed wood techniques instead of nails in many places making the frames more structurally stable. We aren't using glue to keep the frame together either.
FABRICS
Our fabrics are imported depending on the company and some come from China and India though we don't deal with the plants themselves but the import companies. There are different kinds or weaves of fabric such as microfiber or chenille, so we have a wide variety of fabrics. We work with our suppliers to identify trending fabrics that retail well that the consumers would enjoy.
LEATHERS
The leathers we use are all supplied from Moore and Giles who are based out of Lynchburg, Virginia and imported from Italy after being tanned. There are several different types of leather, but we use semi-aniline products e.g. Hudson, and aniline products such as Mont Blanc. Bonded leather is made from strips or pieces of leather blended with polyurethane and rubber though they substitute the rubber sometimes, while aniline leather is often the whole hide.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Early on, we’ve always been involved in our community. To be local, means to get your hands dirty, and get involved where the need is. Once a month, we make it a goal to go out in the community and find people who need a helping hand.
ADRN
We became involved with Austin Disaster Relief Network after a flood wreaked havoc in our community. One of the biggest needs after disasters was refurnishing homes, but that often comes with a hefty price tag. We decided to create the least path of resistance for families to get the furniture they need as quickly as possible and help turn theirs houses back into homes.
SEASON OF CARING
The Statesman’s Season of Caring program highlights the needs in our community by featuring families nominated by local nonprofit organizations. Austin’s Couch Potatoes have partnered with the program for the past few years, donating furniture for families to rebuild their lives. We have also made new furniture available to families in the program at wholesale price.
MAKING MASKS
During the pandemic, we were three days from telling our employees they had to go on unemployment. Instead of letting life taking that course, we did some quick thinking and realized that the same materials that we used in our sofas, are used in N95 masks. With a shortage across the country, we got to work and utilized our materials around the warehouse to supply hospitals and humans with homemade masks
THOSE ARE JUST SOME OF THE WAYS WE TRY TO MAKE
LIFE-CHANGING FURNITURE
JOB CREATION & MANUFACTURING
LIFE-CHANGING FURNITURE
We work with the Texas Transitional Center, which is a network of regional reentry centers designed to provide a structured, supervised environment to help reintegrate ex-offenders into society. We believe, that if you have breath in your lungs, you have a purpose. Maybe they were never given the opportunity to gain a skill, so we try to give them that opportunity.
MADE IN AUSTIN
Our furniture is 100% built locally from the feet up. There’s not another furniture store in Austin, that’s doing it like we are. We try to source from local places too, because we know when we buy locally that the tax dollar stays here locally too.
FAMILY-ORIENTED
Many of our employees include their family in the business, and we support creating jobs for them. During the pandemic, many people were laid off and looking for a job. At one point we had four generations working in our stores, which created a supportive and secure work environment.
QUALITY
DESIGN
Austin’s Couch Potatoes does not sacrifice quality for affordability. Here are some of the materials and machines we use to guarantee you are getting a piece of furniture that will hold up throughout the years:
- Hardwood as the name implies is wood all the way through with nothing added to it. A solid piece of material that is often sought after within the case goods and dining furniture categories (such as Amish furniture) or higher end furniture.
- Plywood is thin layers of wood veneers glued together in a rotating grain to promote strength and flexibility. Plywood because it is multilayered doesn't suffer from the same long-term issues that hardwood does with the expansion or shrinkage of the wood due to moisture of temperature changes. We pretty much use exclusively plywood and it makes our furniture better than most competitors as they will often cut cost on materials.
- Particle board is an engineered wood that is sawdust and small wood chips added with glue or resin and then pressed together. Generally, particle board has low strength, low durability, and will expand when exposed to moisture. When you want to build better furniture, you upgrade to plywood and when you want to save cost you downgrade to particle board.
- CNC isn't a wood but a machine we use to cut the plywood, that comes in wood sheets from the lumberyard. The CNC machine is so precise with the cuts that a human hair is less than the margin of error. This allows us to use jointed wood techniques instead of nails in many places making the frames more structurally stable. We aren't using glue to keep the frame together either.
Our prefabricated hardwood furniture is primarily sourced from makers in Rajasthan, India, and Couch Potatoes donates funding to a network of Hope Givers International Orphanages in the same region.
FABRICS
Our fabrics are imported depending on the company and some come from China and India though we don't deal with the plants themselves but the import companies. There are different kinds or weaves of fabric such as microfiber or chenille, so we have a wide variety of fabrics. We work with our suppliers to identify trending fabrics that retail well that the consumers would enjoy.
LEATHERS
The leathers we use are all supplied from Moore and Giles who are based out of Lynchburg, Virginia and imported from Italy after being tanned. There are several different types of leather, but we use semi-aniline products e.g. Hudson, and aniline products such as Mont Blanc. Bonded leather is made from strips or pieces of leather blended with polyurethane and rubber though they substitute the rubber sometimes, while aniline leather is often the whole hide.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Early on, we’ve always been involved in our community. To be local, means to get your hands dirty, and get involved where the need is. Once a month, we make it a goal to go out in the community and find people who need a helping hand.
ADRN
We became involved with Austin Disaster Relief Network after a flood wreaked havoc in our community. One of the biggest needs after disasters was refurnishing homes, but that often comes with a hefty price tag. We decided to create the least path of resistance for families to get the furniture they need as quickly as possible and help turn theirs houses back into homes.
SEASON OF CARING
The Statesman’s Season of Caring program highlights the needs in our community by featuring families nominated by local nonprofit organizations. Austin’s Couch Potatoes have partnered with the program for the past few years, donating furniture for families to rebuild their lives. We have also made new furniture available to families in the program at wholesale price.
MAKING MASKS
During the pandemic, we were three days from telling our employees they had to go on unemployment. Instead of letting life taking that course, we did some quick thinking and realized that the same materials that we used in our sofas, are used in N95 masks. With a shortage across the country, we got to work and utilized our materials around the warehouse to supply hospitals and humans with homemade masks