Is Leather Furniture Better than Other Types of Furniture?

Leather Furnitures

Leather is a wonderful material.  It’s tough and durable, it’s naturally replenishable, and it feels really soft against your skin.  Leather has many uses including shoes, clothing, and furniture.  Is leather furniture the best choice for your house and family?  Will you be better off with another type of furniture?

Advantages of Leather

The benefit of leather furniture that everyone thinks of first is the prestige factor.  It can make a room seem subtly more elegant or more imposing, and it looks great.  In short, leather furniture can make its owners seem and feel rich, sophisticated, and powerful just by sitting there in their house.  Another great benefit of leather furniture is that it is pretty low maintenance.  You won’t ever need to hire steam cleaners to get the stains out of leather upholstery.  All you’ll have to do to make it look good as new is wipe it with a damp cloth.  It’s also comforting to know that leather is an all natural material which means it won’t harm your family or pets.  The last advantage of leather furniture is that it smells great and fills you whole house with that leather scent.

Disadvantages of Leather

Of course, there are some negative aspects to leather furniture as well.  It’s quite a bit more expensive than furniture made of other materials.  Part of that is the material, but part of that is also little more than the prestige factor.  Leather is expensive because rich, prestigious people buy leather.  The appearance of leather can also hide its impracticalities.  New leather furniture tends to be rather slippery.  You may not notice this is your few seconds trying it out at the furniture store, but you will notice it when you are stretched out on your leather sofa and can’t get enough friction to scoot into a different position.  Leather also isn’t very breathable and will become too hot in the summer and too cool in the winter without a really good climate control system.  So buying leather furniture may make your house look great, but chances are that it will be much less comfortable than other cheaper furniture.

While leather may make for good chairs, footstools, and other lounging furniture, it is not nearly as suitable for tables, bookcases, shelves, or other similar furniture.  For quality you can see, and a piece that will match every color, you should consider buying unfinished wood furniture when you purchase new furniture.