Living room leather sofa - we need opinions

All,

We are new to this site and have been discussing getting a good leather sofa/sectional for our living room. The room is 17ft x 21ft. We have a pergo type flooring and a darker green wall with white trim and ceiling. We have had a Bauhaus (sp?) sofa in the room since a little after we moved in. While it is comfortable, it looks terrible and its appearance has not held up well. (photos of the room attached)

The desire for the room is that we have additional seating (thinking for 4-6 depending on size and closeness) and that we have reclining ability. We would love to have 2 reclining capability, both facing the tv but that doesn't seem to be a functional option. It only appears that both ends of the L would have reclining ability. Perhaps we are in a bit of a pipe dream, lol.

We have been trying to look at motion/reclining series in sectionals. This category seems to have very limited options but perhaps we are looking in the wrong place.

We did see some options in the Seven Seas line of BY but we really wanted the higher quality of BY - say the Ramsay Sectional 8 Way tie.

We also saw the Austin Full recline H&M option but we like the look of the City, September or Charter models (the more full curved end arm).

We noticed the Kenilworth Reclining sectional from Classic Leather but we know very little about that brand compared to H&M and BY. We really didn't notice any appropriate modles on Taylor King, Leathercraft or Elite Leather's website.

Are there other models that we should look at? Maybe some ideas of other options to consider? We figured one piece was better than two because of the room size and layout. Maybe we are wrong? Maybe we don't realize that more of the models can include recliners?

Unfortunately, we live in MO and have a very limited number of stores who carry any of these brands and very little floor stock to sit in. It sounds like we need an Alexandria trip, lol.

Any input or thoughts would be appreciated.

J

Welcome! I'm in St. Louis as well (assuming you're in STL based on your user name) and have had moderate luck finding some things to sit on. Not many places have sectionals, but you can find some sofa models on the floor at local stores. I've looked at H&M and B-Y and I'm happy to share what I've found so far at some of the local stores if you haven't been to many of them yet. There's a couple other people on here from the area that may know of some things I don't. I haven't been able to find the exact models I've been looking for, but have sat on several in my search. Let me know if I can help. Good luck!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kmarcantel

Welcome! I'm in St. Louis as well (assuming you're in STL based on your user name) and have had moderate luck finding some things to sit on. Not many places have sectionals, but you can find some sofa models on the floor at local stores. I've looked at H&M and B-Y and I'm happy to share what I've found so far at some of the local stores if you haven't been to many of them yet. There's a couple other people on here from the area that may know of some things I don't. I haven't been able to find the exact models I've been looking for, but have sat on several in my search. Let me know if I can help. Good luck!

---

Dau Furniture and Schubert carry a couple of the brands but seem to have very limited floor stock to sit in and test. Are there others? Waters in Vandalia sells Seven Seas I think but I don't remember them having any floor stock last time we went there.

Shubert has a few models on the floor - H&M sofas - Sundace & City (and a couple more I think). Chairs - Kodiak, Howell, Bradley, Journal recliner, Austin tilt back, and several others that I can't remember off the top of my head. I haven't been to Dau in a long time since I decided to go with H&M, but I remember that they didn't have a ton of stuff. They have Vanguard's American Bungalow line on display in sectionals, but the leather choices in that program were limited. I saw a couple B-Y sofas that were okay there. Frank Patton has Leathercraft and some H&M on display as well. My aunt & uncle bought some stuff at Waters, but I never drove out there. Baker Odds & Ends has a few random pieces as well, mostly chairs. I think I have a list of what they have somewhere. One of the other members told me about a place in KY that has tons of stuff on the floor, but it's still a 6 hour drive. I can look that up in my PM's if you'd like.

Oh and Shubert has some other leather lines that they carry. They have a number of sectionals on the floor, but none that are motion seating that I can recall. They carry a lot of Ferguson Copeland which seemed nice, but I don't know how it compares to something like H&M. They had more sectionals than I saw anywhere else, but the staff will push you to buy something already on the floor -mostly it's Document and Cavalier hides. They do have a lot of leather samples in large pieces to look at - I wish I would have seen all that sooner. Definitely helps to narrow the search.

My suggestion would be to NOT look at reclining sectionals or even sofas for that matter unless you are sure thats what you want. A couple of reasons for that:

* The Recliner ends get all the wear and tear. No one wants to sit in the other part of the sectional.

* If you buy a piece made in China such as Seven Seas you will almost certainly never get parts for the unit. Break a recliner mechanism down the road and you might not be able to find a replacement mechanism.

* Lots of pinch factor for kids in those (with recliner built in). Its one thing to have them in a chair, another to have them in a sectional where kids can - and will - get hands caught in there.

* They are heavy and you give up the nice 8-way hand tied seat deck on the recliner ends.

I much prefer a standard, stationary sectional and then instead of a coffee table, use a large, leather ottoman (37" Square or larger). You'll find you get all the comfort of a recliner with the ottoman, you can use them in any position on the sectional, and the sectional won't show the wear like the ones with dual recliners. You will get more versatile furniture that lasts longer and is trouble-free if you stay with stationary. That's also why you won't see a lot of these offered in premium lines. Every company has a few, but they're not huge sellers.

Classic Leather builds a good product. The owners of Hancock and Moore learned their trade there!