Suggestions for High End or Middle (whatever that is) for Rough and Tumble Furniture

We have finally bought a long term house, and I am now looking to furnish it with more permanent furniture. While I feel confident in case good choices after reading this site, I am still not sure what to do about couches and chairs.

Our son is 5 years old and easy on furniture, but we are going to be doing foster care (and hopefully adoption) of sibling groups under age 5 in our new home. We could have anywhere from 1-4 babies/toddlers/preschoolers in the home depending on the sibling group. We have no illusions that these kids will be as chill as our son, and they may even intentionally harm things in the house as an emotional outlet.

I have gone to the popular furniture stores in our new area, and they sell cheap furniture. I can't imagine that it would stand up to even a year of abuse, and it just feels cheap and weak even on the showroom floor. I did find some high end furniture stores finally, but I am left wondering how I would feel if a child (to whom I have not yet bonded) decides to impale it or write all over it or poor sauce on it.

Ideally, I would like a mix of leather and fabric, with the fabric being soft and cozy like a chenille, brushed cotton, or microfiber. We entertain fairly often, so I plan to have a variety of chairs in the living room and family room - basically seating for about 8 or 9 people in each room.

I don't want cheap furniture, and it wouldn't last, but do you have suggestions for better quality furniture? Are machine washable slipcovers a viable option? I know they are expensive as they cost basically as much as the upholstery on the chair itself. I would like some leather, and it wears well, but then I am a little worried about cuts. Any suggestions for a crazy house with lots of little kids? Normally you introduce them one at a time, but here I will be getting several young children all at once, and I want to care about the children, not my furniture.

As for pricing, I would not feel comfortable having a $6000 leather sofa destroyed. I believe that higher end chairs here in Utah, like Braddington Young, go for around $1700 for a basic high back leather chair with the painted type finish. However, I am wondering if I should go for mid ranged furniture with a sturdy build, if there is such a thing, for more like $700 - $1000. The same store that had the B-Y chairs had Lee furniture, which is a mid range furniture built in the USA, according to my understanding (don't exactly remember the prices). I would feel comfortable replacing a $700 chair without much remorse, but I don't want to sit on it every day and feel like the seat cushion is going to give out. Should I slipcover a more expensive chair? The only thing with that is it pushes the chair up to maybe $2500/chair, and that is too much for me to stomach, especially since I need more than one. (I am giving price examples to show where my personal comfort level is on spending, since that plays a factor into what I get.)

Slipcovers might be the way to go, because as we grow our family and actually adopt kids, we won't always be in the same situation, and I might get more than 7 years out of the underlying fabric and can just get a new slipcover (Pottery Barn look but with better quality furniture and fabric). If there are quality upholstered chairs for under $1000, especially closer to $700, then I would be ecstatic, but I don't think that is reality. Around here, places with better furniture (like the Stickley store and the stores with B-Y) go the % off MSRP route, and standard pricing is 30% off with 40% off sales about twice a year, though I'd love to buy from you, drcollie, if you are happy to have another out of state customer, as I feel that I have already gotten a ton of service from your website, and I am planning to at least buy a Treharn dining table chairs from you (and maybe hit you up to see if your custom guy can do a variation of a Thos. Moser nightstand piece). I don't mind if the kids do personal distressing of case goods, which is why I want solid wood, and I figure that I don't have to pay someone to distress my pieces for me :)

I went to Craigslist in Utah to see what I could find and pretty much struck out....looks like you don't have the treasure trove of used furniture that we do on the East Coast. I did see lots and lots of cheapish puffy furniture for sale that was pre-owned, but that was going to be my first suggestion. This one chair looks pretty good in Salt Lake City, however:

http://saltlakecity.craigslist.org/fuo/4894523490.html

Every furniture store - EVERY ONE - has some 'graveyard' pieces that they are stuck with and want to move. Go find the store manager at ones near you and explain to him what you have here - bet they can find something for you. Typically these kind of pieces are going to have another 20 % to 30% off the regular selling price in the store, especially if they have small areas of damage on them that don't affect useage or functionality. That may be your best option.

I'm not a fan of slipcovers, though I grew up in a house with them as my mother thought they were wonderful. I prefer a couple cans of Scotchguard, and keep it applied when it wears off (every 6 months or so). A top grain leather can really take the torque, just keep it cleaned and conditioned, sharp objects away from it as well as permanent markets and it will give you the the duty cycles you expect.

Glad to ship to UTAH, I have dozens of customers in your state already....

Yeah, Utah doesn't have much good furniture to pass around publicly. Any quality pieces tend to go to family and friends and get passed down until they are completely worn out. There are only a few neighborhoods in Salt Lake City (close to the nicer furniture stores, as it happens to be) and maybe houses in Park City would have decent furniture, but like I said, the big stores here are cheap China stuff. I asked if they carried any case goods in solid wood. The only ones they had were cheap pine in the rustic lodge collection that looked like log home furniture, and this was a store with over 40,000sf of showroom space. I'm from Boston, so I am used to nice stuff for quite cheap and sometimes even free on Craigslist. I'll check out the local charity stores close to the wealthy areas. They might have something, as it would be more likely donated than sold around there.

Also, the style here is very shabby chic/cottage, or oversized Mediterranean for the bigger houses (wouldn't fit in mine- I have a 1950s brick house). I was looking through books with the owner of one store, and she kept asking me if east coast people had more traditional styling in their homes (I said it was much more common). She said she was tired of the overdone Mediterranean look. I'll see what kind of floor models they have on discount that won't overwhelm my space. I would still like my house to fit my personality and style.

What would you suggest for contacting you about purchases? Right now I am in the planning stage. I have formerly had a sort of hodge podge of furniture, but this time, I would like a more designed look where everything coordinates. We only kept our leather couch and dining set from our last house. We will start remodeling our house the end of this month, and it is going to take 4-6 months, maybe longer for everything, but we will be able to move in at that point. I wanted to have furniture and colors picked out so that I know what to do with the wall colors, flooring, and trim so it all coordinates. I know you are busy, and I don't want to waste your time, but I would really like to talk to you about if there are reasonable pieces you could provide. However, I am 6 months to a year out from actually buying most things, probably (I understand that fabrics and furniture get discontinued). However, I really need a plan, and I want pricing so that I can create a budget and plan for buying things. What would be the most efficient way to work with you?

Ideally, I would like to know what I could get in different price ranges, but with the whole book and hand figuring, I don't know if that is possible. Am I right in assuming that the fabric and leather grades at least come in classes, and things are prices the same in each class? Or is that individually priced too?

Thanks for your responses!

Scotchguard is a great idea. I have never used it, so good to know it works.