My old sofa has an ottoman that the same height as the sofa, which I love because I did not have the room for a chaise sofa. It would block the fireplace and might be too close when I have a wood fire in it. I use the ottoman to basically make one end into a chaise when I want to. So I am having a hard time with none of the H&M ottomans seeming to be available in chair/sofa height. I understand Duane and others here like it a couple inches or more lower, but I guess everyone is different in what they like. Is it possible to have any of them made a couple of inches higher or would it add a large amount to the cost? I was thinking it might be able to be done with a few extra layers of padding under the material. I am also considering leather vs. Carpet on the ottoman and which would be more durable. I am concerned about leather wearing and showing color changes from frequent use, showing small cracks in the finish, etc. Which is more likely to look good in 5 or 10 years given frequent use? My last question is on size. My current ottoman is about 23x29" in front of an 84-86" sofa. The cocktail ottomans they make with the carpets sound huge. Do they go in front of something like the 9840 city sofa, or would I need to make the jump to the larger city sofa for it to look right? I am also considering the ottoman that they show with the City Chair and a half. Any suggestions would be helpful. For some reason I am finding it almost impossible to find pictures of these items in front of average size sofas to judge scale.