So we've got a living room and a family room. The former has a 4 year old "microfiber" cloth sectional and the ladder has two 10 year old low end leather couches. Due to the kids and cats, the 4 year old sectional looks HORRIBLE but the leather couch and love seat set still look great, despite being more than twice as old.
So DW and I are beginning to look for a replacement for the sectional (there are a lot of things we don't like about it I won't go into here) and we know we want to go leather....but when we began store and Internet research today we were hopelessly lost. Full grain, top grain, levels of grade, etc. all confused us terribly, and each store had a completely different system and they were happy to sandbag their competitors' selection.
Is there something I should be looking for? Should I just go by what I think looks nice and not worry about it? I'm thinking with the kids I should go with the cheaper, glossier stuff as they might hurt it less, especially considering how well the other couches have stood up. I'm starting to think the leather furniture industry can give the jewelry and used car market a run for it's money on consumer obfuscation....
So DW and I are beginning to look for a replacement for the sectional (there are a lot of things we don't like about it I won't go into here) and we know we want to go leather....but when we began store and Internet research today we were hopelessly lost. Full grain, top grain, levels of grade, etc. all confused us terribly, and each store had a completely different system and they were happy to sandbag their competitors' selection.
Is there something I should be looking for? Should I just go by what I think looks nice and not worry about it? I'm thinking with the kids I should go with the cheaper, glossier stuff as they might hurt it less, especially considering how well the other couches have stood up. I'm starting to think the leather furniture industry can give the jewelry and used car market a run for it's money on consumer obfuscation....