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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