San Diego living room

[Mungo]

We have a very large room that flows directly into our kitchen. One wall is split evenly between a TV and a fireplace, and that is the focal point. We have three dogs, and two of them are schnauzer mixes. They are hard on our furniture but only from a scratching perspective. One of them is nimble enough to perch on the back of the couch by the window and look at the wildlife, which leads to great excitement, and unfortunately that is where most of the wear and tear seems to come from. Will add a photo in next post showing some representative wear. We will consider putting a blanket along the top of the future furniture to add some protection. It isn’t practical at this point to retrain.

I am just starting to reconsider how to refurnish this room, having just gotten rid of half the seating, with the intent to change what remains as well. The room is very wide, and while bright, we had solar film placed on the windows to reduce glare and UV. There is about 20 feet of usable width and 11 feet of usable depth. Budget is $8000 including shipping, and I live in San Diego. The style of our home is transitional.

Some things I learned from reading here already:
Sectionals cost a lot more than separates
Unprotected leather may paradoxically wear better than protected
Buy Made in the USA if possible
Be prepared to deal with some potential hassle if buying from non-local dealer

What kind of configurations do you think we should consider? Out of this whole space I would like to get “8+ seats”. That could be two sofas and a loveseat for example. A giant U would be great but prohibitively expensive I suspect. Where will I find the most value in my price range? My preference would be leather, but I want to be strategic about that choice and get something with some resistance to the wear issue from my dogs. I can handle cleaning and conditioning every 6 months.

Thanks for taking some time to share your ideas with me.