H&M Illusion Sofas #5359 - Piazza Loden

Our two H&M Illusion Sofas (#5359) in Piazza Loden arrived Sunday. We love them! :D:D:D BUT FOR the Town & Country program and Duane's pricing, we could NOT have afforded them. It cost us a bit more to get them in Loden than in the standard T&C program Piazza colors, but we took the chance that it would be money well spent (and appreciated that because they were not the standard colors, they would be cut and installed in North Carolina just like non-T&C H&M pieces).

Before taking delivery about six weeks sooner than my wife and I had planned, we quickly had a doorway into our living room enlarged, as can be seen in one of the photos. Now we need to get the contractor back to finish that job.

I wanted to share these photos because we not only made this big (for us) purchase in reliance on all I learned by reading this forum, especially from reading and re-reading Duane's many entries, but we never got to sit on an Illusion sofa or see the Piazza Loden color in person. The leather samples sent to us by Duane helped immensely, for they gave us comfort that the Piazza Loden coloring would work very well with our living room furnishings and paint colors. We also took comfort from the Piazza Loden sample that the leather would not be shiny - we are matte people, not glossy....

We are even more pleased with how they look than we had anticipated. We are also even more pleased with how they feel than we had anticipated. Although it would have been wonderful to get an unfinished full aniline leather, and watch and feel it age with us, our daily reality is that we live in a house with teenagers and a dog (isn't he cute?), and we have been known to snack and sip beverages while in our living room, on and around our furniture. Because of that, we needed a finished leather, but we didn't think it would be as NICE as the leather of these sofas. They feel buttery - that's the word that best describes their feel to me.

As for choosing Illusion for our sofas, we picked them over our other finalists, two City Sofas, because our living room is eclectically decorated in contemporary and transitional pieces. We also thought the City Sofas with their T&C Cavalier leather might be too shiny for us (as pictures and the leather sample seemed to confirm). Having the Illusions in the room, we know that choosing their more contemporary look and their matte finish were wise choices for us.

A note about how they sit: I - at about 5'8" find them quite comfortable to sit on with my feet on the floor, and especially with my feet on the coffee table. My wife, who is about 5'6", enjoys sitting on them with her legs tucked under her, but needed the small pillow for her lumbar region in order to feel comfortable sitting with her feet on the floor. I find that I most appreciate that little pillow when I am working on my notebook computer while sitting with my feet on the floor.

One more thing: During the course of all of my reading on this site, I noted something recently written by Duane about delivery realities for long-distance customers. He wrote something along the lines of needing to understand that it is usually much better to accept delivery of a leather piece that may have been smudged a bit or of wooden feet that might have been scratched a bit. He didn't say you couldn't be insistent on perfection, but wanted people who might be on the picky end of the spectrum (saying "you know who you are") to understand that if you refuse delivery of something with a minor issue, once the piece is trucked back to the factory and then back to you, what had been a minor issue might by then have been fixed only to be superseded by a major issue ... because stuff happens when furniture is trucked long distances, not in its original factory crate but wrapped somehow or other to fit as much in the truck as possible.

Well, you guessed it, one of our sofas arrived with a smudge along the welt of its arm, and, below it, with a smaller-than-a-penny not-quite-a-rip-but-more-than-a-smudge. Since delivery was late on a Sunday, I presumed I would not be able to reach Duane to discuss it. My wife and I talked it over and took a chance and agreed to accept the sofa as it was. I sent Duane photos and a long explanation on Monday morning, and we talked midday. Once he examined the best of the photos I had sent him, he agreed quickly to pay for the cost of repair, and even sent me a link to a local mobile "jobber" with Fibrenew - a company he had not used before, but thought might be good.

Duane was not happy to hear how poorly protected the sofas had been (they were covered only in a thin gray sleeve taped underneath with a few little clear plastic tape pieces just to hold the thin gray material open parts somewhat together), and said he would take that up with Sun Delivery. Duane was also not happy to hear that Sun's driver told me that if I noted any damage on the paperwork he would have to return the sofa to the factory - for it apparently is not supposed to be that way.

Anyway, the Fibrenew craftsman came today and worked his coloring and repair magic, and you can't tell that there was ever a problem, let alone two.

The morals of the story? H&M T&C furniture - even in finished leather - is of amazing quality. Duane Collie is as good as not-advertised. We greatly appreciate all he has done through this forum to inform me about H&M and T&C and furniture and leather and so much more. (Indeed, he taught me so much through the forum that I didn't insist on talking to him as we narrowed our choices during that last hectic week of T&C madness. The first and only time we have spoken was during that short call Monday.) We further appreciate how he has provided the service after the sale that we knew he would based on the many testimonials here. Keep up the great work, Duane!


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