Greetings, sectional / sofa replacement options

First off, thanks for this forum, what a great resource for learning about furniture. Been lurking around a while now, but I'm getting closer with regards to making a purchase, so I wanted to solicit some opinions on my situation. All comments welcome.

Ok, so my wife and I have decided that its time to retire our 15 year old, completely shot (16" seat height, which I doubt was the original measurement) leather couch. Rather than buying another "regular" piece of furniture, I think our best bet will be to get something nice that is going to last a long time. All paths of research seemed to lead to Hancock and Moore, which led me to this forum.

This sofa is for my theater room, so I'm really looking for something more informal that is big / soft / comfortable. 99% of the time, its my wife and I only in there... I actually have a matching loveseat but its just sitting behind the couch, as we don't use it for anything. As beat up as my old couch is, I like that I can kind of slouch back into it and lean my head against the back. I started out looking at sectionals, but have since started focusing on something like the Tower sectional (http://www.hancockandmoore.com/produ...productid=1499). For my situation, I have a feeling this type of setup with the 3 wide seating with a chaise lounge on the end, would probably be way better than having the sideways seats and semi-useful corner section of a sectional. Unfortunately, the choices for this type of setup are kind of limited, at least ordering straight from the catalog.

So we went to our "local" Hancock and Moore dealer (which is a little more than an hour from me, since I live in the middle of nowhere). They had two H&M sofas on the floor, and the build quality difference was immediately apparent. Some solidly built stuff, for sure. I told the salesperson everything from the above paragraph, and they were happy to give a quote etc. for the Tower sectional and show us leather options. All of that is very nice, but I am somewhat concerned with the stated dimensions on the Tower piece due to its intended usage in my house. It also concerned me that I seemed to be the only one who was concerned, if you know what I'm getting at. I compared the dimensions to the couch to be replaced, and to a sectional I have in another area of my house, and from what I can tell it seems like the seat back is actually fairly short on the Tower (taking overall height and subtracting seat height to try and get a feel for back-height). 21.5" seat depth is less than the measured depth on both couches we sat in in the showroom... though its pretty clear that there are more factors than just seat depth that make a couch feel deep or shallow. Fair to say that I'm pretty concerned about shelling out a whole bunch of money for something that I'm not sure is going to suit the intended purpose. On the other hand, I have a feeling that because of my remote location, its going to be near-impossible to be completely positive about the purchase before I make it.

So anyway, thats part of the reason I'm here. Part of me is wondering if paying the extra for customization of some sort would be a good way to go. Part of me is wondering if I could take a 2 seat left-handed sectional and a 2 seat right-handed sectional, add an ottoman of some sort, and get a similar layout in a different style. Mostly I'm looking for some guidance from those with experience, since I really don't think I'm going to be able to be 100% sure of what I'm getting before I buy.

The other thing I need to mention is the pathway to the room. Due to a lack of foresight, when I built my house, the doorway to this room was put in kind of an awkward position. I'm going to attach an image I took from our blueprints so you can see what I'm talking about. The problem is, you can stand a piece on end (9' ceiling), but when you try to kick the bottom into the room, the top can hit the opposite wall before you clear the top of the doorway. Doorways are all standard width (35" - 36" or so). The large couch to be replaced measures roughly 33 - 34" tall by 40 - 41" deep and 94 - 95" wide, and we were able to get that in there by taking the doors off the room and more importantly, the closet across the hall. Pretty sure we managed to tip the top of the couch into the closet to clear the top of the door frame, which means it was tipped at kind of an angle through the door to the movie room. I honestly don't remember the details but it wasn't exactly easy. Since it definitely plays a role here, I figured I'd include it.

Thanks in advance for any advice or feedback!

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I'll weigh in with an opinion....

First off and foremost is getting it in the room. That eliminates about half the sectionals out there right off the bat because of the way they are built and configured. I also don't see the Tower as one that you would really enjoy in that setting, its more skewed to style than comfort but it would most likely fit. The chaise unit is not near as comfortable as a recliner in actual use.

My first suggestion would be to move away from the sectional idea and go into theater seating as not only is it nicer to sit in, but its component based so you can get them into most any room. Even the arms are designed to bolt on afterwards. The top of the line is the Monterrey and Savoy units from H&M and they are supremely comfortable and perfect for a media room, though not inexpensive:

http://www.hancockandmoore.com/produ...productid=1702

http://www.hancockandmoore.com/produ...productid=1697

Option two would be a pair of 2038NB Austin High Back Tilt Chairs with ottomans. Easy to get in, and there is no better sit anywhere.

Option three: The Bradington Young 912 Sectional with power end unit recliners. Wonderfully comfortable, comes in three pieces so its not too hard to get in tight spots.

Hope that helps!

Thanks very much for the response... I had a feeling the Tower sectional was probably not what I was looking for. I don't want to say that I had my heart set on H&M, but I was hoping to go that way. I have to be honest though, that Bradington with the reclining ends looks really nice as far as what I'm looking for. Unfortunately my local store, who is a Bradington dealer, didn't have any Bradington sofas on the floor. Those Monterrey theater seats look awesome, but I showed them to my wife and she said "Whats next, separate beds?" haha. I guess its nice to be wanted.

Anyway, since I was looking mostly at H&M, I don't know a whole lot about the options available (leather, cushions, etc). I'll go do some reading about them so that I don't have to ask a billion questions and make you type out all the stuff you've probably said a million times elsewhere on the internet, Duane. The only other thing I can think of is pillows. I'll probably wind up doing black leather for whatever seating we go with. I know its boring, but the whole room... floor, walls, and ceiling is a deep red (white moulding). I definitely want to stick with a dark color, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable going too far out on a limb with color choices. Its hard going over all those color swatches and saying "uhh.... black please", but I think thats probably the safe play for me. Anyway, I saw H&M makes leather pillows and figured that'd be a good way to put some color into things... I'd be interested in hearing what you think a good option would be for that (if I wind up going with the Bradington sofa, do I go with H&M for pillows... does Bradington do something similar, quality differences, etc.)?

Thanks again for the reply, I still want to have a closer look at things, but I think I'm pretty close to moving to PMs and getting into some numbers and all of that. Thanks a lot!