Hello,

I am so glad I found this forum. It has been an awesome resource for me as I learn about leather sofas, quality and construction. We are considering getting two Hancock and Moore Sofas from the town and country program and are gravitating towards the ones with the traditional arm styles. We had a chance to sit on a few today at two different stores. We like the 83 inch City and the Anderson. One sofa would be between two doorways on an 89 inch wall (inside trim to inside trim) and the other sofa would be floating in the room with its back about 5 feet from a bay window. We liked both of them and both seemed comfortable.

My husband likes the City Sofa better look-wise but my slight hesitation with it is that our current sofa has inside dimensions of 65x22 and the City's inside dimensions are only 63x20.5. My husband thinks that we would acclimate to the slightly smaller size but it does make me a little nervous since we are both often lying on on either side of our current sofa at the same time. The one other thing we noticed is that the two City sofas we sat on (at different stores) both felt very different -- one felt much more upright with less cushion space than the other (we are assuming it is because that one may have been newer) Also 2 of 3 swatches in the color we like best (Cavalier Mocha) seemed to have a very large coarse grain pattern versus the larger swatch with the same name which had a much smaller/nicer pattern and feel to it. The difference seemed very significant on that one.

I personally liked the Anderson Sofa more. I think the few additional style elements make it seem a little more special to me than the City. I also like the fact that it has a 65x21.5 inside depth which is closer to our current sofa. The cushions also felt a little more supportive to me than the City (although oddly my husband felt the oposite-- like he sank into that one more than the City). My husband isn't crazy about the high back style or the nailheads on the Anderson. I am also not crazy about the high back style but think it will be less noticeable if we get it without the nailheads. The one thing I am slightly nervous about with the Anderson is that since the back is large and rectangular if it might look too large from the back when it is floating in the room.

We also sat on the September (but my husband didn't like that the back on that one rises above the cushions and he felt that it seemed very large) and we sat on the Austin (which we found very comfortable but neither one of us likes the back cushion style). Neither store that we went to had the Journey which we had hoped to see. But, if the Journey costs much more than the Anderson it would likely be out of our budget range anyway. We also sat on the Bradington Young Daylen today. We both really liked the way it felt and the size of it but we have heard from so many people that H&M is a superior product construction-wise and has better customer service so we really like the idea of getting a H&M set.

I am curious if anyone on this forum has sat on the City or the Anderson sofas and can provide insight into comfort (especially with two people lounging on one at the same time)? I am also curious to get thoughts from others on how the Anderson might look look floating in the room so if anyone has it or a sofa with a similarly high back I would like to get your thoughts on that as well?

The only other thing we are wondering is about is the chemicals used in the tanning process. I know from calling H&M that they no longer use fire retardants in their cushions (which is great) but today we mentioned to a friend that we want to get new leather sofas and she said we should be concerned about the chemicals used in the tanning process. I am curious if anyone knows if H&M tests their hides for Chromium (VI) or other chemicals before they put the hides on sofas? I don't know anything about these chemicals except for what I learned on google today but I saw a few sites that said that Chromium (III) can be accidentally converted to Chromium IV during the tanning process and that once Chromium (IV) is present in the leather it can be dangerous. It would be good to know if H&M has a way of checking the safety of the hides since we have two small children ages 3 and 4. I'd appreciate any insight that any anyone may have about this.

Thanks in advance!