I’m decorating my new home… here’s what I find really annoying about Victorian houses

A homeowner who criticized British houses for being “too narrow” found herself in an expensive predicament after she took drastic measures to fit a sofa into her living room.

Originally from Nigeria but living in the UK, Deby Oscar documented his dilemma on TikTok after ordering a brand new corner sofa for his home in November 2023.

In a shocking video – which has since racked up over 500,000 likes – uploaded to her TikTok account, @debyoscar, the content creator captioned the footage: ‘Why are British homes so narrow?’

Oscar and her husband criticized Victorian homes in Britain for their narrow dimensions when the sofa arrived in separate parts at their front door.

The couple, along with a mover supplied by the company they placed their order with, struggled to maneuver parts of the couch through the narrow hallway and window into the living room.

The couple, along with a mover supplied by the company they placed their order with, struggled to maneuver parts of the couch through the narrow hallway and window into the living room

Oscar said in the footage: ‘So my sofa arrived and as you can see the middle part fits but the rest of my sofa didn’t fit through my narrow hallway.

‘Like, who invented this narrow passage? I tried so many sofas. This is the seventh sofa.’

Despite their best efforts, the couch stubbornly refused to cooperate, leaving the pair at their wits end.

It was at this point that the frustrated homeowner revealed that in a moment of sheer desperation, she made a bold decision: out the window, in with the couch.

She said: ‘At this point I didn’t care. Take out the windows, because I need a sofa. We tried so many different ways. We removed the window, so I made the leading decision to pull the whole frame out.’

Oscar complained about the extra cost of having the window frames removed by professionals, as the footage captures the moment a builder unscrews the panels and the mover returns to push parts of the sofa through the opening.

She said: ‘They pulled the whole window, the whole thing off, which cost me so much money.

‘Of course, when they did, the sofa finally fit. Once it was inside, they closed the windows – they had to rebuild it anyway’.

It was at this point that the frustrated homeowner revealed that in a moment of sheer desperation, she made a bold decision: out the window, in with the couch

Before and after: Oscar complained about the extra cost of having the window frames removed by professionals, as a builder unscrews the panels and the mover returns to push parts of the sofa through the opening

However, the couple’s efforts hit a snag when the sofa’s light gray color clashed with their living room decor, leaving them disheartened and in disbelief.

Oscar added: ‘My dilemma is that I don’t like the color of my sofa. I look at it and I’m like, “I wanted a beige one,” and that’s just not what I ordered.’

She asked, ‘What should I do? Do I take the window out and pull it out, do I just live with it or just cover it with a blanket?

“I’m changing the blinds to have a white one and the lampshade to something else, so I feel it doesn’t fit with the final design I had in mind.”

Over 6,700 comments poured in from viewers sharing their thoughts, with many suggesting the homeowner used sofa slipcovers to mask the color clash, while others criticized the couple for ordering a sofa that is ‘too big’ for the home.

The couple’s efforts hit a snag when the light gray color of the sofa clashed with their living room decor, leaving them disheartened and in disbelief

Over 6700 comments poured in from viewers sharing their thoughts, with some criticizing the couple for ordering a sofa that is ‘too big’ for the home

One person, who sympathized with the couple’s problem with their narrow hallway, said: ‘Old homes weren’t built for today’s furniture, not just in Britain.’

Meanwhile, one critic said: ‘The bigger problem you have is that the sofa is way too big for the room’, while another wrote of the sofa’s colour, ‘didn’t you see the color when they were handling it?’

A fourth critic wrote: ‘You should measure the dimensions of the hallway and doors etc before you buy,’ to which Oscar replied: ‘Believe me, I moved in August and just got a sofa. I tried the narrowest sofa from most companies. No one fits.’

It comes as experts have warned against a trend where people on social media are trying to revamp their sofas with paint.

The trend is trending on TikTok and Instagram reels and has garnered more than 29.7 million views as creative fans try to save money through their DIY projects.