We have finally bought a long term house, and I am now looking to furnish it with more permanent furniture. While I feel confident in case good choices after reading this site, I am still not sure what to do about couches and chairs.

Our son is 5 years old and easy on furniture, but we are going to be doing foster care (and hopefully adoption) of sibling groups under age 5 in our new home. We could have anywhere from 1-4 babies/toddlers/preschoolers in the home depending on the sibling group. We have no illusions that these kids will be as chill as our son, and they may even intentionally harm things in the house as an emotional outlet.

I have gone to the popular furniture stores in our new area, and they sell cheap furniture. I can't imagine that it would stand up to even a year of abuse, and it just feels cheap and weak even on the showroom floor. I did find some high end furniture stores finally, but I am left wondering how I would feel if a child (to whom I have not yet bonded) decides to impale it or write all over it or poor sauce on it.

Ideally, I would like a mix of leather and fabric, with the fabric being soft and cozy like a chenille, brushed cotton, or microfiber. We entertain fairly often, so I plan to have a variety of chairs in the living room and family room - basically seating for about 8 or 9 people in each room.

I don't want cheap furniture, and it wouldn't last, but do you have suggestions for better quality furniture? Are machine washable slipcovers a viable option? I know they are expensive as they cost basically as much as the upholstery on the chair itself. I would like some leather, and it wears well, but then I am a little worried about cuts. Any suggestions for a crazy house with lots of little kids? Normally you introduce them one at a time, but here I will be getting several young children all at once, and I want to care about the children, not my furniture.

As for pricing, I would not feel comfortable having a $6000 leather sofa destroyed. I believe that higher end chairs here in Utah, like Braddington Young, go for around $1700 for a basic high back leather chair with the painted type finish. However, I am wondering if I should go for mid ranged furniture with a sturdy build, if there is such a thing, for more like $700 - $1000. The same store that had the B-Y chairs had Lee furniture, which is a mid range furniture built in the USA, according to my understanding (don't exactly remember the prices). I would feel comfortable replacing a $700 chair without much remorse, but I don't want to sit on it every day and feel like the seat cushion is going to give out. Should I slipcover a more expensive chair? The only thing with that is it pushes the chair up to maybe $2500/chair, and that is too much for me to stomach, especially since I need more than one. (I am giving price examples to show where my personal comfort level is on spending, since that plays a factor into what I get.)

Slipcovers might be the way to go, because as we grow our family and actually adopt kids, we won't always be in the same situation, and I might get more than 7 years out of the underlying fabric and can just get a new slipcover (Pottery Barn look but with better quality furniture and fabric). If there are quality upholstered chairs for under $1000, especially closer to $700, then I would be ecstatic, but I don't think that is reality. Around here, places with better furniture (like the Stickley store and the stores with B-Y) go the % off MSRP route, and standard pricing is 30% off with 40% off sales about twice a year, though I'd love to buy from you, drcollie, if you are happy to have another out of state customer, as I feel that I have already gotten a ton of service from your website, and I am planning to at least buy a Treharn dining table chairs from you (and maybe hit you up to see if your custom guy can do a variation of a Thos. Moser nightstand piece). I don't mind if the kids do personal distressing of case goods, which is why I want solid wood, and I figure that I don't have to pay someone to distress my pieces for me