You will know what a new piece of furniture changes for a cat, what is worth checking on delivery day, and what is better left to sort itself out.
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A new sofa is not a decorating change for a cat. It is a change to the plan of the room, with routes that vanish and others that appear.
What your cat registers is not the style of the piece. It is that a route along the wall has been cut, that a new high spot exists, and that a gap it used to slip under has gone.
Before you push anything against a wall, look at what that wall was doing. A lost walkway shows up within hours, when a cat starts crossing the room by way of the table.
A cat rubbing its cheeks and flanks along a new corner is laying down its own scent. The object moves from foreign body to part of the territory, and it happens without you.
Avoid scrubbing the piece down straight after that work, especially with anything strongly scented. All you do is put the job off until tomorrow.
A flat-pack unit, a mattress, a new sofa all give off a smell in the first days. A cat's nose is far finer than yours, and it sleeps on surfaces with its face against them.
Air the room thoroughly before settling it there, and do not throw out its old bedding yet. Better that it has the choice between the new thing and the familiar one.
The old armchair you take out takes with it a hiding place, a familiar smell and often the best lookout in the room. The cat loses three things on the same day.
The answer is simple and costs nothing: put the replacement in place before the old one goes, not after. A cardboard box left in the same spot for a few days cushions the change better than something new placed elsewhere.
A tall bookcase, a chest of drawers, a narrow shelf unit: these tip when a load shifts forward, and a cat landing on top is exactly that shifting load.
Makers almost always supply a bracket or a strap for fixing to the wall, and it usually ends up in a drawer. Assembly day is the only moment when fitting it costs five minutes.
Think about open drawers too: a cat climbing the drawers like a staircase moves the centre of gravity forward with nothing holding the unit back.
It is tempting to carry the cat onto the new sofa to show it that all is well. That produces the opposite: the object becomes the place where it gets put down against its will.
Leave it be. Put something on the furniture that already carries its smell, keep the room open, and say nothing about it. Most cats sort this out themselves within a few days.
What no longer belongs in this piece: a cat that, on top of avoiding the room, stops eating, stops using its tray or stays hunched in hiding. At that point the thing to look at is not the furniture but the animal, and that is a vet's job.