Update The bastards. The cocking sofa isn't coming after all, we were misled. Let's see how long it takes the credit card company to refund it.
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So I have recently moved back to Leeds and, for the first time, into an unfurnished property. This necessitated a few furniture purchases, in particular a new sofa and a new dining room table. At the start of March we took a trip down to Birstall and, after as little shopping around as I could possibly get away with, picked up the furniture from two different stores. Apparently it takes eight weeks to deliver a sofa, and eleven weeks to deliver a table and some chairs.

On a Saturday about a month ago I received a letter to tell me that the sofa company, Klaussner, had gone into administration. There were one or two expletives uttered on reading the title of the letter, but the administrator's letter seemed to be reasonably optimistic about the prospects for our sofa. A bit of research showed that the company had gone into administration less than a year before, and that it had been sold as a going concern. This time round it's not, but for reasons unknown it turns out that we will get our sofa after all.

Last Saturday I received another letter to tell me that the dining room table company, John Peters, had gone into administration. There was significantly more swearing this time. This administrator's letter was more matter-of-fact and didn't try and put a nice gloss on things. That said, there was a letter from the company telling us that we'd get our table, and that stopped the swearing.

Bad luck but, despite not having received any of the goods yet, it appears we'll get our stuff. Apparently people have less money to spend, and the first things people stop buying are 'discretionary goods' such as furniture. Some paulholloway.com furniture purchasing learning points for you:
* Do a bit of research before you go shopping. If you've got a particular shop in mind, do a bit of searching on the web beforehand.
* If you put down a deposit, use a credit card and put on at least £100. Credit card companies protect you against all sorts of things, but most require you to spend at least £100.
* Big is not necessarily better, but it is safer. We didn't want to go to Ikea, but if we had then we wouldn't have had anything to worry about.