A Sofa Manifesto

I'm starting out with a rough picture, but here goes:

Phil and I have been VERY fortunate and blessed to have been given A LOT of furniture as is evidenced by the photo above. We have been blessed with very generous friends and family who have given us all kinds of beautiful pieces. As in, in all the furniture you see in this picture was given to us. Of all the furniture in our house, only one little parsons table has been actually purchased by either of us. And I bought that table in the garage of an estate sale for $60, so it doesn't really count as a big furniture purchase.

Here is the poorly-styled orange parsons table as it looks right now:

I also bought those green benches at an estate sale, also for a great price, but I don't count those as furniture.

SOOOOO...... The one thing we need are two sofas for the den, so we are approaching our first real furniture purchase. Let me tell you: this is a TOUGH decision. Both of us believe in buying high-quality pieces that will last years to come. If you've spent any time around us, you have probably heard us get on our soapbox about buying quality furniture. I'm currently sitting on the Sherrill sofa that Lipscomb grew up on while looking at my grandmother's Vanguard couch from the late 1960s/early1970s. Both of these sofas are in remarkable condition. The upholstery has been loved on and worn, but overall, these couches have stood the test of time and don't look saggy or distorted. So all that to say, we plan to buy high-quality couches that will last us for years.

While the upholstery can be changed down the road, the shape cannot be altered, so we're trying to find the perfectly shaped pair of sofas that will fit our needs now and in future homes. This past weekend, we (mainly Phil) moved around the furniture in different configurations. We love to entertain and we want this room to offer as much seating as possible. But in my words, I don't want it to look like a dorm room with as many couches stuffed into the room as possible. So after lots of scooting and shifting and pulling we have come up with a floorplan that we both like enough to commit to. We can have a pretty long sofa (86-90 inches or so) facing the TV, but the one on the side needs to be more loveseat-sized. I'd really like the small sofa to be something I can still kind of stretch out on, so I need it to be around 68-75 inches wide, which according to the blue tape, will fit.

Where the striped sofa is where the long sofa will go, and the empty space will be the shorter sofa. 

So now that we kind of have that somewhat maybe figured out, it's time to choose an actual sofa that we like that also fits these dimensions. So now, it's time for you to help us!

We've got 3 options, shown below. All of these will be covered in a charcoal grey fabric. MAYBE with red welting or some red accents, but maybe not. But they will definitely be dark grey. So now, for the options. Ignore the things like the finish color, or feet shape, nailhead trim, etc. because all of that can be modified.

Option 1,  from Lee Industries:

Option 2,  from Hickory:

 Option 3 from Sherrill:

So we'll get into customizations later (fabric, trim, feet, finishing), but which sofa shape do you like best? Voice your opinion in the comments...one day I'll figure out how to do a real survey.