Friday, March 11, 2011

How to Choose Upholstery for Home Theater Seating

You’ve decided to purchase a home theater seating group for your dedicated theater room or perhaps for your living room but how do you go about settling on the upholstery choice? It’s not a simple decision.  There is a certain amount of pressure felt when we want to make sure that our home reveals who we are.  The work that goes into building your home is an attempt to make our most precious time with the people we enjoy as pleasant as possible.  Sure, you can gain inspiration about the upholstery choice portrayed in design magazines but the homes in those magazines can help to lead you down to an impractical path.  You need to decide what your requirements are.  Will it be comfortable?  Is it practical?  Is it trendy?  In the end, will your choice meet everyone’s needs?

The allure of sumptuous leather is almost astonishing.  Its buttery soft texture, its enriching fragrance, its distinguishing appearance – in every way, quality leather delights our senses.  Unlike with other materials, time is leather’s friend.  Where a synthetic material breaks down with age, time smoothes and softens quality leather, thus improving its character.  Tanning processes preserve the leather’s natural beauty.  Typical home theater seating is usually upholstered in this natural upholstery.  While leather tends to evoke luxury, there are so many types of leathers that can fit your budget.  Natural full grain leathers are not only the most expensive types of leathers but feature subtle to noticeable color and texture inconsistencies from panel to panel.  That is the beauty of natural leather and it should be appreciated.  Protected leathers, on the other hand, are a bit stiffer than natural leathers.  Pigment is a type of dye used in protected leathers which seals the hides and makes them durable.  They are much more moisture and dirt resistant than natural leathers.  Protected leathers are good choices with families with kids and or pets.

Performance fabrics like microfibers offer durability as well as connotations of luxury looks but at a much lower price point than leather.  Performance with beauty is a best way to describe these wonderful fabrics.  It’s amazing how something so delicate in feel can be so indestructible.  The secret lies in the short, very fine, water repellent polyester fibers which give them unique and advantageous properties.  The fine fibers are tightly packed creating a larger fiber surface area resulting in deeper, brighter, and richer colors.  In relation to other fabrics with similar weight, microfibers are strong and resilient.  With home theater seating there is a very high chance that popcorn and beverages will spill on the seats.  You needn’t worry though if your upholstery choice is a microfiber especially with kids and pets around.  Keep in mind that an ordered, consistent look is not one of the characteristics of microfiber though.  If microfiber is rubbed back and forth there will be some variation like that of a peach skin.  Another way to imagine this is to think of vacuum lines of an area rug.  However, this is part of the splendor and character of this miraculous fabric.

When deciding on an upholstery choice for your home theater seating, consider the price as well as practicality and style.  Both leather and performance fabrics like microfibers are ideal for theater seating.  The sumptuous feel of leather can be had within your budged if you choose the protected leathers and you know it will stand the test of time.  On the other hand, if you simply don’t like the feel of leather choose a performance microfiber which has many of the desired characteristics of leather without the feel of leather.