There is a lot that goes into furniture shopping! Whether you are furnishing a single room or an entire home, there is much to consider when it comes to style, cost, and quality.
The most crucial decision in furniture shopping is selecting the right retailer!
Every furniture retailer has something unique to offer, in not only the products they carry but also the overall shopping experience and supplementary services they provide.
It is important to choose a furniture retailer that best suits your needs and preferences to ensure that you enjoy the process and are satisfied with your purchases.
This decision is not always easy, especially in Ottawa with so many exceptional furniture retailers to choose from. More specifically, Home Société and La-Z-Boy Home Furnishings & Decor are two primary examples of furniture retailers in Ottawa with something unique to offer consumers.
As a reputable furniture retailer in Ottawa, we at La-Z-Boy are proud of the products and services we offer, but we know that we are not for everyone. To this end, the point of this article is not to dispute one retailer over the other, but to determine which furniture retailer is best for your individual needs and preferences based on their similarities and differences.
This article will provide you with a detailed comparison of both retailers based on their style of showroom, their online platform, products & brands they offer, where it is made, the price, interior design services, custom furniture services, financing options offered, warranty plans, delivery services, and where you can shop in Ottawa.
Let’s Get to Know Each Retailer …
In general, Home Société and La-Z-Boy are quite different in their approach to selling furniture, making this comparison of retailers very interesting.
Home Société is a new furniture retailer in Ottawa, opening its doors in June 2021. According to Éric Corbeil, the co-president of Home Société, “Home Société cannot be compared with other furniture stores”.
With a french flair and clear emphasis on home design, Home Société takes a new approach in selling furniture. The modern concept retailer “was created to show the possibility of design through a specially curated shopping experience celebrating style at every price point”.
Ursula Leonowicz, a writer for the Ottawa Citizen, describes Home Société as accelerating the “democratization of style” by making the home design more accessible and transparent to the average consumer.
In contrast, La-Z-Boy furniture retailers have been around for over 90 years, with family-owned and operated locations in Ottawa since 2011. While our La-Z-Boy retail stores are constantly evolving in the products we offer, our approach as a furniture retailer is more traditional.
While style and design are a priority, the La-Z-Boy brand places a higher emphasis on the comfort, quality, and longevity of our products. Further, we are committed to providing helpful services with the sale of La-Z-Boy products to ensure satisfaction beyond the point of purchase.
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to comparing Home Société and La-Z-Boy as furniture retailers. Clearly, each retailer has a unique value to offer their customers, but which retailer is right for you?
Style of Showroom/Furniture Gallery
Typically, your visit to a furniture showroom is your first step in the furniture selection process. Every showroom is slightly different in its approach to layout and ambiance.
Home Société
The Home Société showroom is situated on Iris Street in Ottawa measuring over 80,000 square feet.
The open-concept showroom resembles a market-style shopping experience, comparable to IKEA, yet much more sophisticated in product and design. The showroom showcases a collective of local and international furniture and accessories from a range of Brands, giving off an outlet mall feel.
Éric Corbeil claims that this style of the showroom was created with the intent of allowing people to browse and be inspired without feeling rushed. In order to create a full-service space, the Home Société showroom also features Italian food services, such as La Bottega Nicastro and Moretti Caffe.
Further, the showroom is staffed with salespeople who double as designers. With a design being a focus at Home Société, their staff is equipped to give shoppers advice on interior decor.
La-Z-Boy
Alternatively, the La-Z-Boy showroom and gallery take on a more traditional approach. Essentially, the showroom is one large, open space, typically about 13,600 to 17,000 square feet in size. Instead of weaving through spaces of a market-style showroom, in a La-Z-Boy showroom, you can see the entire space from any given vantage point.
La-Z-Boy showrooms in Ottawa & Kingston are organized in one of two ways …
New Gen
Cyrville and Kingston are considered “New Gen” showrooms which is the second iteration of La-Z-Boy gallery layouts. They have a “Design Centre” in the middle of the showroom where cover samples, wood samples, catalogues, brochures, large tables for presentation and Designer desks are located. On either side of the Design Centre are the racks that hold hundreds of area rug samples.
The rest of the store is basically divided into four pods delineating the different Galleries. The left side, as you walk in the front door, is for the motion vignettes (Family Room Gallery); front of store for fabric, back of store leather (Leather Gallery). The right side is for stationary vignettes (Living Room Gallery). We “soldier” all the recliners at the back of the store behind the Design Centre (Recliner Gallery). Both the stores now have a designated Canadel area that allows for 5 dining sets to be displayed.
New Concept
Nepean and Kanata are “New Concept”, the third iteration. There are curved walls at the front with a display of our chair types and open shelving for accessory displays on one side and a vignette that has a “peek a boo” opening into the recliner area on the other.
The motion and stationary (fabric and leather) vignettes are mixed throughout the store to encourage exploration.
Further, there are a lot more accessory towers displayed throughout the stores. The stores have partial walls displaying Lifestyle Collections such as Classics Revisited, Family Favorites, Comfortably Casual, and Modern Retreat.
There is a large “Design Inspiration” area in the centre of the store with Urban Attitudes vignettes and accessory towers. The “Design Centre” has a large dedicated desk for the In-Store Designer and is at the back corner of the stores. There is a workstation with lots of storage behind a wall at the back of the Presentation area of the Design Centre for the Designer’s use.
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In all La-Z-Boy showrooms, you will find a handful of salespeople on the floor, whom we refer to as design consultants. These employees have the exceptional product knowledge and are experts at helping clients find exactly what they are looking for based on their specific needs and preferences.
Moreover, a La-Z-Boy showroom will always have a professionally trained interior designer on the floor, found in either the “Design Center” or the area called “Design Inspiration".
Online Platform & eCommerce
In today’s day and age, an online platform and eCommerce business model has become an essential aspect of any furniture retail business.
Home Société
The online platform of Home Société is an urban and modern style website. The website takes on a minimalist and open concept design, ultimately resembling the open concept showroom floor. As you would navigate through the furniture collections in the showroom, you slide horizontally through the pages to navigate through information.
In comparison to other furniture websites, Home Société’s website is slightly less straightforward and user-friendly. It is dense in writing and lacking in images of the product. In order to see the product, you must be redirected to the official website of the brands they carry.
When it comes to eCommerce, you cannot purchase furniture through the Home Société website. Instead, users are redirected to the brand’s websites in which they can browse furniture and make a purchase online.
La-Z-Boy
The website for local Ottawa & Kingston La-Z-Boy locations resembles most other furniture websites that you may be used to seeing. It is clearly organized by product categories, in-stock items, sale items, a learning center, design, and services. It is relatively easy to navigate and helpful information is easily accessible.
La-Z-Boy is similar to Home Société when it comes to eCommerce. La-Z-Boy products cannot be purchased through the local website, instead, a customer may be redirected to order online through the La-Z-Boy corporate website. Otherwise, clients are encouraged to visit a local showroom and ‘test drive’ the furniture they were browsing online before making a purchase.
Brands, Collections & Product Selection
While both furniture retailers offer quality and stylish furniture in their own right, Home Société and La-Z-Boy appeal to very different markets in the look and feel of their product selection.
Home Société
Home Société carries a range of local and international furniture and accessory brands that include Maison Corbeil, Jardin de Ville, Must, and Ligne Roset. Home Société does not manufacture or carry any of its own products.
Maison Corbeil is a contemporary brand with a favour for neutral tones. They claim to “provide the ideal backdrop for staging refined settings, featuring accents inspired by the latest trends”.
Furniture from the Jardin de Ville brand combines elegance, functional design, and timeless silhouettes, and high-quality materials, all while remaining aligned with the modern design found in Home Société.
A large piece of the Home Société retail space is filled with products from the Must brand. Must offers “modern-minded and architecturally inspired furniture at affordable prices.
In comparison, the French brand Ligne Roset offers high-end, contemporary furnishings made in France, available exclusively at Home Société in Ontario.
With a combination of products from each brand, you will find a range of living room, dining room, bedroom, home office, and outdoor furniture, as well as a wide variety of accents and home decor. It is also important to note that the upholstery selection is primarily stationary.
Amongst this assortment of brands, Home Société attempts to tailor each showroom to the unique desires of clients in that location. For example, within the Maison Corbeil selection at Home Société in Ottawa, there is a specific collection called Lodge that caters to the style of cottaging culture in the area.
La-Z-Boy
La-Z-Boy specializes in quality, comfortable, and long-lasting furniture products. While style is a priority, La-Z-Boy is known for putting comfort first!
With an emphasis on upholstered living room furniture, La-Z-Boy is known for the invention of the iconic reclining chair. In addition, you will also find no shortage of comfortable sofas, loveseats, sectionals, accent chairs, and ottomans to choose from.
The upholstery selection at La-Z-Boy offers many choices in stationary, manual recline, and power recline.
Moreover, the entire upholstery selection carried at La-Z-Boy is manufactured by the La-Z-Boy brand and distributed exclusively at La-Z-Boy retailers. With this, La-Z-Boy consultants are absolute experts when it comes to La-Z-Boy product knowledge.
Despite common knowledge, La-Z-Boy also carries a wide selection of bedroom, and dining room, as well as home decor.
These case good products are manufactured by additional divisions of La-Z-Boy incorporated including Kincaid, American Drew, and Hammary.
Additionally, the local Ottawa & Kingston La-Z-Boy businesses work very closely with Canadel in providing options for custom dining furniture. Canadel is Canadian-made and manufactured out of Louisville, Quebec.
When it comes to style choices, La-Z-Boy furniture ranges from traditional to transitional, to contemporary. More specifically, the upholstery selection can be broken down into four main style categories: Comfortably Casual, Classics Revisited, Modern Retreat, and Family Favourites.
Home Société
Home Société carries products from a handful of furniture brands that manufacture their products both locally and internationally.
Products from Jardin De Ville are made completely in-house in their Quebec headquarters. Similarly, the Maison Corbeil brand has private collections of local and Canadian-made furniture.
Furniture from the Ligne Roset collection is made entirely overseas in France.
La-Z-Boy
La-Z-Boy is a global manufacturer with operations in North America, Thailand, and Europe.
La-Z-Boy’s products are primarily made in North America for North American markets. The global headquarters of La-Z-Boy is in Monroe, Michigan but the majority of our recliners, chairs, sofas, and sectionals that are sold in Ottawa and Kingston are manufactured in Dayton, Tennessee.
For more information, check out the article Where La-Z-Boy Furniture is Made.
Price
The cost of furniture can be a very definitive factor in one’s choice of a furniture retailer. If a furniture retailer does not match your budget, it can easily become a write-off.
When it comes to the cost of furniture sold at Home Société and La-Z-Boy, prices are relatively comparable.
Home Société
Home Société carries a range of brands offering furniture at different price points. They do so intentionally to encourage shoppers to mix and match affordable furniture with high-end furniture, all in the name of design.
Generally speaking, furniture at Home Société varies widely within the low to high price range.
To get a better idea of prices, consider the cost of a sofa from each brand:
|
Maison Corbeil $1,700 -$10,000 |
Jardin De Ville $800 - $20,000 |
Must $800 - $3,000 |
*Please note that prices may have changed since publishing this article.
La-Z-Boy
Alternatively, the cost of La-Z-Boy products is more confined to the mid-high price range. Although La-Z-Boy may not offer options for lower budgets, the retailer offers customers more consistency in the overall quality, comfort, and craftsmanship.
For comparison, the cost of a sofa at La-Z-Boy ranges from $1,999 - $4,000
*All La-Z-Boy prices listed in this article are subject to change. We aim to update all cost-related articles twice per year. This article was last updated on May, 2023. Please visit lzb.com and select an Ottawa or Kingston La-Z-Boy store location to view the most up-to-date pricing.
For more information about the cost of La-Z-Boy furniture, take a look at the article Is La-Z-Boy Furniture Expensive?
La-Z-Boy and Home Societe offer options to upgrade and customize your furniture of choice. With this, prices are subject to change or increase.
Interior Design Services
While everyone has their own taste and preferences, not everyone has an eye for mixing patterns or a talent for seamlessly pulling together a furniture arrangement. As such, Interior design services can turn a house into a stylish home.
Both Home Société and La-Z-Boy offer interior design services, in their own unique way.
Home Société
As previously mentioned, Home Société is staffed with in-store specialists who double as interior designers.
Given that the showroom houses various styles from a collection of different brands under one roof, they encourage customers to mix and match these styles and trends with the help of professional stylists.
La-Z-Boy
At La-Z-Boy, interior design service is a large part of how we help clients find exactly what they are looking for and dreaming of for their home.
With this, professional design assistance is complimentary, with a purchase at La-Z-Boy.
Throughout the design process, you will collaborate with your designer on furniture frames, colours, textures, and decor. Further, your designer will guide you to making the best decision possible by assessing your unique preferences, your personal space, and measurements of your room.
Before making any final decisions, you will be able to preview your design choices using a 3D state-of-the-art rendering of your room. You and your designer can tweak the design until you are completely satisfied.
To learn more about our design services, take a look at the article La-Z-Boy In-Store Design Presentation: What to Expect.
If you are unable to meet with a consultant, La-Z-Boy offers many free resources online for design inspiration. Take a look at our Before and After design blog posts and hear from our designers themselves. Finally, La-Z-Boy provides a free Augmented Reality app for your phone that will enable you to ‘see’ your frame and upholstery cover in your own room before you buy.
Custom Furniture
It is important that any furniture you purchase resembles your unique tastes and preferences. Customization allows you to make a piece of furniture uniquely yours.
Home Société
Home Société offers a select variety of fully customizable furnishing, for both indoor and outdoor.
Given that Home Société aims to encourage their clients to “explore their own unique sense of style” it only makes sense to offer customization allowing clients to fulfill their specific tastes and requirements.
La-Z-Boy
Similarly at La-Z-Boy, custom furniture is not only offered but is encouraged. Given that our La-Z-Boy products are made and manufactured by La-Z-Boy, anything offered in-store or online is customizable to meet your individual taste.
More specifically, La-Z-Boy offers hundreds of options in colours, fabrics, styles. Anything can be customized including textiles, accent pillows, welt trim, nailhead trim, wood finish, leg design options, and recliner optional add-ons.
To learn more about La-Z-Boy’s custom furniture options take a look at the article Custom Furniture at La-Z-Boy, What to Expect.
Financing
Regardless of which retailer you are shopping with, furniture of any kind is often a significant investment. The option for furniture financing can take some strain off of your pocketbook and allow you to enjoy a new piece of furniture while paying off the investment over time.
Home Société
At Home Société, furniture financing is not currently offered.
With that being said, brands carried by Home Société, such as Maison Corbiel, Jardin de Ville, and Must, have announced that they will be offering furniture financing options beginning on March 1st, 2022.
La-Z-Boy
Alternatively, La-Z-Boy does offer furniture financing through a partnership with Flexiti Financing.
With this, La-Z-Boy offers the opportunity to finance your purchase at a 0% interest rate as long as the purchase is paid off within a given period of time. Based on the plan you choose, there are different options available to pay off your investment over either 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, 24 months, or 36 months. Further, depending on the plan chosen, you may be required to pay a financing fee at the time of purchase.
To learn more about furniture financing, take a look at our article Furniture Financing: Everything you Need to Know.
Warranty
As previously mentioned, furniture is a significant investment. When making a big purchase on furniture, you want to be confident that your investment is protected and will stand the test of time.
Many furniture retailers offer a warranty on furniture in order to give you that extra peace of mind.
Home Société
Furniture at Home Société is sold with a warranty that covers 1 year of manufacturing defects. This warranty does not apply to accessories.
La-Z-Boy
La-Z-Boy is the retailer and manufacturer of their upholstery branded products. With this, La-Z-Boy products are sold with a manufacturing warranty that covers 1-3 years of damage caused by manufacturing error or workmanship. This warranty is applicable across all upholstery categories on a consistent basis.
Take a look at the article Are La-Z-Boy Recliners Guaranteed for Life for a detailed breakdown of the recliner warranty at La-Z-Boy.
For an extra cost, La-Z-Boy also offers a more comprehensive service protection plan that covers up to 5 years of accidental damage. The cost of this protection plan extension is relative to the price of the product.
For more information on La-Z-Boy’s warranty and protection plan take a look at the article Is La-Z-Boy Warranty Worth it.
You may also find some useful tips on how to maintain the look of your furniture in the article 2020 Furniture Care Tips.
Delivery Service
Furniture requires some heavy lifting. It is often best that we leave this part of the process up to the furniture retailer.
Home Société
Home Société offers two options when it comes to delivery.
They offer a basic, drop-off delivery service for a fee of $99.
Home Société also offers a white glove delivery service for $169. With this, the delivery men deliver the furniture, place it in your home, unpackage the piece, and remove any waste.
La-Z-Boy
At La-Z-Boy, local Ottawa & Kingston delivery costs $129.99, and out-of-town delivery costs $169.99. For an additional fee of $25 per furniture piece, we can assist with either moving out old furniture from different rooms or bringing it to the curb.
Additionally, we offer the option to dispose of any old furniture in a local landfill at an extra charge of $50 / per furniture seat.
To learn more about delivery at La-Z-Boy, check out our delivery service page: La-Z-Boy Ottawa and Kingston Furniture Delivery Service.
Where to Shop: Ottawa Locations
Home Société
Home Société has one new location in Ottawa that recently opened in June 2021.
2685 Iris St, Ottawa
La-Z-Boy
La-Z-Boy has 3 locations in Ottawa 4 total locations in Eastern Ontario.
290 West Hunt Club Road, Ottawa
What’s Next?
Home Société and La-Z-Boy are both great choices but each has unique products, services, and experiences to offer its clients!
With a detailed comparison of each retailer, the choice is now yours! You now have the information necessary to choose a retailer that best meets your specific needs and preferences when it comes to cost, time, style, protection, and personalization.
La-Z-Boy produces high-quality furniture that is consistent in comfort and longevity. Our complimentary design services take our product services to the next level by ensuring that the furniture you purchase fits seamlessly into the style and layout of your home.
Visit us at a local showroom or schedule a visit online to get started.
We look forward to meeting you and begin turning your house into a home with a thoughtful and personalized furniture selection.
Related Links:
What to Expect When Purchasing Furniture at La-Z-Boy Ottawa & Kingston