Leather Hide and Dye Variations--Hyde Park Merlot

For those looking to purchase leather furniture, I thought it might be helpful to show how much the colors can vary from hide to hide and sample to sample. Sometimes the finished product isn't anything like the sample. Also, samples vary greatly from store to store.


I am attaching a photo that shows Hyde Park Merlot leather samples on our sofa, the finished product. The lightest sample is the 2x3 that came from Hancock and Moore, ordered by Duane. It seemed more brown and had a dull tone, no sheen, and felt dry. Duane sent me a larger sample from his store, and it was much closer in color to what we wanted and helped us make the final decision to go with the Hyde Park Merlot. The tiny piece on the sofa is what I cut from that sample to save, and I returned the sample to send back to Hancock and Moore with my order to try to match when I did a cutting for approval. The large piece is the actual cutting for approval, which was even nicer yet--very deep and rich in color with a nice soft, moist feel. As you can see, the sofa turned out just a little different but was very close to the cutting for approval and we were very pleased with the end result. As Duane always reminds us, these are hand-burnished pieces and we won't know what we will end up with until it arrives. Plus, we can't tell the artist how to do his work :)