H&M # 5588 Yosemite Sofa in Hand-Antiqued Sunset - customized

I bought this for floor stock - and since I get bored with plain vanilla brown sofas, decided to jazz it up a bit! I took my new most-favorite leather then added a Longhorn Tan Burnished Gimp to the base, and had Buffalo Nickel brass done over the gimp, spaced 1" Elsewhere I did the hand-hammered "T" nail set head-to-head and finished if off with the special "I" stitching instead of welt all over the sofa. Finish is Java. I think it came out GREAT - and Hancock and Moore liked it so much they photographed it and are planning to offer this combo as a feature in the Spring Showroom at High Point.

I did most the photos outside, but wanted to take an inside shot as well to demonstrate how lighting can affect colorway. One inside shot was taken with no flash, and the overhead lights turned off to cut down glare.

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It must be a pretty nice leather - let's see, the Carmen, the Yosemite, the McNary a while back, plus two tanneries and a Princeton... Good thing you took the chairs home or you'd be on your way to becoming The Sunset Room! I bet you'll get a lot of requests for samples of this one. Since burnished ones are hard to come by, you should have insisted the scraps from your orders be burnished as swatches for your own customers. :cool:

So how about a Filmore for the floor in the same cover, with the back cushion button detail from the Carmen and the lower front nail detail from the Cross Roads? Maybe some nice spaced buffalo nails along the bottom of the side panels? Too busy? Darn. Well, it was worth a shot.

HA! Well, what I've discovered in the store is when customers come in they seem to automatically be drawn to the handsome burnished hides moreso than others - so naturally I tend to buy what customers tell me they want to see. The average floor model in a regular leather usually stays on the floor about 5 to 6 months. When I have burnished ones, that usually becomes 5 to 6 weeks. I also spend the better part of a day in the H&M showroom at Market and see what the other dealers and decorators are drawn to - and the burnished leather section stays very busy with a lot of positive comments. What surprises me the most is how the other leather companies haven't jumped in on this part of the market - none of then off hand-antiqued or burnished leathers and they are missing out big time in my opinion.

Take that Filmore sofa, and put it in a burnished leather like Hand Antiqued Sunset - take the top 'picture frame' border and do that in Nile Croc Burnished, then the welt trim on the piece (and buttons on the tufting) in Cameo Brown Burnished, do a Gimp in Nile Croc and in with the Buffalo Nails on the base, spaced 1" and you're have a killer sofa!

You know, I know how those upholstery buttons work, but it never occurred to me that you could change the material inside them to contrast with the main covering. That opens up some wild options!

Would making the border in Nile Croc put the whole thing into GR5? Or is that considered trim like a gimp or welt would be?

You can have the buttons done in anything you like, as they're made on a little Button Press machine separate from everything else (its very cool to watch). If you ever go to H&M for a tour, ask to watch the button-maker! Using wilder leathers on them won't have much effect, however - surface area is too small. But its fun to match buttons and contrast welt in alternate colors to the main body.

When we do a back border in a high grade leather, its just a percentage upcharge. Not too bad to just do a back border and gimp in a GR 5.

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Originally Posted by drcollie

When we do a back border in a high grade leather, its just a percentage upcharge. Not too bad to just do a back border and gimp in a GR 5.

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Interesting.

I better stop talking about this. I still need a stupid mattress and have a guy quoting built-in bookcases as we speak, not to mention the only thing keeping my garage door in the track at the moment is a stack of patio pavers three feet high (although that's been working well since June). If we continue this thread I'm going to end up in the poorhouse, especially once we throw in the matching 5062.

Duane,

It was a pleasure meeting you today. I think you've pushed me toward going big for my next purchase! Is this the same sofa we looked at today? It looks so red in your pictures, did the color change over time?

Thanks for coming to the store, it was great to meet you.

Yes, see how tricky camera's can be on color? I don't have the time to color correct all the photos that I take and the Nikon D40 that I use doesn't have the best color accuracy.