Leather/wood finish/room- Does it all have to match?

HI everyone! I am totally new to this forum and so happy I found it. We are renovating our library/study in our home that used to be a screened in porch. It needed extensive
renovation and structural changes and it has been almost a year to get where we are now. See photos below. I hope to order a Harper Sofa by Hancock & Moore because it is the perfect size for this room and I love the style and look of it. My problem is choosing the leather. I have sort of decided on the CAMEO MOCHA BURNISHED leather and the Normandy wood finish.
This sofa shows the wood frame of the sofa all the way around the bottom and the legs. My question is : Is it OK to have the wood choice and the leather almost the same color?
Also since the room is all mahogany including the ceiling with a walnut wood floor- Should I pick out a leather that does not have the same colors as the woodwork. My husband's desk is a lighter wood with a brownish leather top. Is anyone familiar with the HARPER sofa by Hancock & Moore? Has anyone purchased it? I just do not know if the leather and wood have to match or if it will look strange if they are almost the same color. I am a very visual person and cannot seem to grasp what this combo will look like. We do not have a great dealer in my town and they were not any help. In fact they did not even know what the Harper sofa was even though they carry H & M. I am not sure where I will get this but I know I am SO happy I found this forum! Any help will be appreciated! I also included a photo of the Harper sofa. Wish I could find one with brown leather!




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Welcome to the forum! That's a great sofa, it sits well - had lots of style and is not too large.

As to decor all I see is a darkish medium brown in the room. Is there going to be anything to put in a splash of color like window treatments or an bright oriental rug? I think your run the risk of creating a dungeon-like atmosphere with everything in the same tone, its will make the room dark and boring. Let's assume for a moment that there are no bold colors coming in - then I would want to do that sofa in a color that has some 'pop' to it. Cameo Mocha is too dark. I'd be looking at putting that sofa in a higher end leather to play off the nicely finished wood trim. My first impulse would be be a mossy green, to keep the earth tone thing going on and yet bring some variation in to the scheme.

Ricardo Basil would be my top choice - but that's going to hurt you checkbook as its a Belgian GR5 leather made from German bull hide. It would be smashing in that room, however.

If you don't want greens, then Weston Cane, a GR 3 leather is my next choice. Its lighter and livelier than a dark brown and yet still retains an elegant hand and look to it.

Steeplechase Bone Polished and Tierra French Luggage round out my leather choices.

There s no right or wrong on the wood frame color choice, but you have to select that after you do the hide. I would personally not try to match the existing tone in the room , but to make the piece stand on its own and have a color pop.

Hope that helps!

Thank you for your reply Duane. I really appreciate it. I used a decorator for the rest of my house and this is the last room to go and just needed a little boost to get me in the right direction. I have custom plantation shutters in walnut (to match paneling) going on all the windows. The room has 6 windows on two walls (it was a screened in porch) so because we live in Texas we need something to keep the sun out!

I am going to look at the leathers you posted and I am going to visit your store soon. My daughter lives in Washington DC! I was thrilled to see your store is in Alexandria!

Thank you again. So fun to part of your forum. It is awesome!

I'd like to see some more photos of the room if you can. Its hard to tell the perspective - can you get a wider angle lens camera?

It is SO hard to photograph this room because it is an ALL mahogany from floor (walnut) & paneled ceiling & walls- but most of all because the lights are not installed in there yet & the Texas sun glares in the 6 windows most of the day. Plantation shutters are on order in matching wood stain.... SO on that note.....I have one more question. I have bee stressing over the color of my HARPER sofa for days. It is going in this all mahogany paneled room with wood floor but there will be COLOR in the rug. Having said that (I have not purchased the rug yet) my dear husband has decided he might like BLACK leather! Now I am really a basket case. I do like Weston Ebony and maybe lighten the wood up a bit with Lineage. On the Harper there is a base that shows wood off which I really love but makes it harder when choosing wood colors. I also thought about a color (teal, moss) for the leather but my husband does not want that. However he can be talked into if I persist and tell him "the owner of the company said blah blah blah...." :) Any thoughts would be much appreciated and welcomed. I am stressed with this order.

Oh no...I'm not getting thrown under the bus!

Seriously, here's what you want to do. Go rug shopping first, its how the pros do it. It's MUCH - MUCH easier to build off the rug than it is to buy furniture and then go shopping for a rug. Buying a good rug is like buying a painting, a work of art as it will drive the feel, color and texture of the whole room. And your husband should have primary choice on the rug if that's mostly his room to be in. You will find once you have the right rug in the room everything else will fall into place rather quickly. If you are going oriental, target the hand-made, village Turkish rugs. Expect to pay $ 75 to $ 100 a sq ft for the good stuff, wool on wool. Do that and once you have the rug down, take photos and we can figure it all out.

Thanks Duane! I would never throw you under the bus! HahHah! My husband just has to hear it from someone else sometimes! We are going rug shopping ASAP!
I will be back. Hopefully.....

I was going to add, find the rug first, but Duane is giving excellent advice above! My in-laws have a lot of paneling to decorate around (and soon, shutters...we are in TX too), so I'm interested in what you decide on for the finished product.

When you have that dark paneling, you want to bring some pop into the room with color, so when you go rug shopping focus on lighter and more vivid colors in the rug than you might normally select. Any good rug merchant will let you bring three or four rugs home over the weekend to try out with a deposit on them, so do that. Remember the only way to buy rugs is by the square foot. Do the math, and don't pay over $ 100 a s.f. for a rug unless you're getting into silks. For example a 7 x 9 is 63 s.f., and for a high quality rug that would put the price somewhere in the $ 4,700 to $ 6,300 range if its Turkish (less if Chinese or Pakistan). You may walk into a store and they will have $ 12,000 tag on a rug like that and tell you how rare it is, but FOR YOU its going to be $ 8,000. Pull out your calculator and look them deadpan in the eye and ask them what the price per square foot is for the rug that they will accept. This will knock them off balance and they will know to stop trifling with you on pricing. If they insist - then leave and go to another store.

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Hi everyone!

I finally have a rug that I think I am going to buy. Still not 100% sure on this rug but have a few questions as to the color of H & M leathers to go with this with a room full of dark paneling (my husband's home library office). I love the Tiburon Peacock, Glazed antique blue, possibly glazed sapphire.... I am doing the Harper Sofa and have decided against
doing a brown leather because it is too much dark brown. Any suggestions. I am open to anything. Thanks so much. Had trouble finding Turkish rugs in Austin -- Really wanted more
of a pop of color but I do like this rug. My husband wants this done yesterday! Thanks again!