You’re looking around your decked out media room, and your eyes fall to your years-old fabric home theater seating. It looked great when you first got it, but it has since fallen victim to the ravages of time—you’ve got fabric pilling, stains, and cat scratches galore up along the arm rests. It’s without a doubt time for an upgrade, but have you considered making the switch to leather?
Leather is one of those timeless materials that can be incorporated into nearly any home décor style and immediately elevates the design of the room it’s in. When you’re thinking about upgrading your media room furniture, leather theater seating should be at the forefront of your mind—here’s why:
1. Like all good things in life, leather gets better with age.
Your current fabric media room chairs have been around for a while, and they don’t have that fresh-out-of-the-box sheen anymore. It happens. You think, “why get a more premium material like leather for my media room furniture if it’ll do the same thing years down the line?” Like the finest vintage wine out there, your leather home theater chairs would actually only get better with time.
Being a natural material, leather “breathes” as it absorbs moisture from its surrounding environment. As it takes on and accumulates moisture and oils from use, and it interacts with other elements at play like sunlight, leather will develop a rich patina that only looks better the older your leather media room seats get.
For those unfamiliar with the word, “patina” refers to the sheen and markings that appear on high-quality natural items through age and use. While this sounds a lot like discoloration of a product, it’s so much more. The patinating of items is uniquely you, and they reflect the life that the object or product has lived alongside you—it’s something to be celebrated and admired. When your new leather seating starts to patina, think of it as the luxury theater seating it is.
2. Leather is notoriously easy to clean.
Let’s face it—stains happen, and they happen a little too easily sometimes. Non-leather theater seating (think fabric, velour, and others) can take on some gnarly stains over their lifetime despite all valiant attempts to keep them stain-free.
On the flip side, leather media room seating couldn’t be easier to clean. Say you’re cozied up on your new leather 4 seat theater couch with a glass of wine, and you’re watching your favorite comedy. You laugh uproariously, and some of the wine sloshes out of the glass onto your home theater seating. Normally this would send anyone into a panic, racing to find the nearest damp washcloth and some detergent to lift the stain as soon as possible.
With leather, if your liquid stain is caught quick enough, all you’ll need is both a dry and a damp cloth or towel to soak up the stain, and then gently clean the affected area. It’s seriously that simple. Got some grease or oil on it? Sprinkle a dash of cornstarch on your media room chairs, and let that soak up the stain overnight. Wipe it off and give that leather a little conditioning, and it’s good as new!
Leather is a forgiving material when it comes to most stains, and you deserve the peace of mind knowing it’s okay to relax in your home theater without having to worry too much about keeping that leather theater seating pristine.
3. Leather adds an element of timeless luxury to your interior design.
Trends come and go, but leather has always stuck around. You don’t have to be an interior designer to know that leather never goes out of style. It’s a premium material, and with all of the color and upholstery options for leather media room furniture, it’s a versatile addition to your home no matter what your personal aesthetic is.
Going for a warm, inviting feel for your media room? The deep, natural tones of mahogany-brown theater seating in full-grain leather would achieve just that, and as we’ve discussed before, brown leather seating is officially here to stay. Make your seating a home theater sectional for the maximum amount of coziness, and get ready to never want to leave your media room.
Is a classic look more your vibe? Black leather theater seating, with its stately dark tones and high-end material, is the epitome of class and luxury—pair those with a built-in bar in your home theater, and you’ll be living it up and movie-watching in style.
Leather is one of those enduring materials that is always on-trend because of how durable, long-lasting, and good-looking it is. Years down the line, when you start to think about redesigning some aspects of your entertainment room again, you won’t have to think about replacing those leather seats because of their versatility and timelessness.
4. Leather is one of the most durable seating materials.
Leather has been biologically designed to take a beating—it helps animals survive the cold and heat, and it allows them to survive a quick scuffle or two. It’s been worn by humans for centuries to help us stand up to the elements, and it’s what we sometimes use to protect our laptops, phones, and eyeglasses. The bottom line here is that leather is tough and durable.
The durability of leather is largely due to the long fibers of collagen that comprise it. These fibers are interlocking and somewhat flexible, making any true leather product resistant to the wear and tear of everyday life.
When it comes to our leather theater seating here at Valencia, we use top-of-the-line, full-grain leather in our seating, meaning it’s as durable as it gets. So, go ahead and let the kids play on the leather entertainment room sofas—they’ll hold up.
With a little bit of routine care, that durability can last decades. Working in some leather conditioner a few times a year will do wonders for your new home theater chairs. Leather conditioner works with the material to rehydrate it and add an extra layer of protection to your media room furniture, keeping them looking their best and feeling their comfiest.
5. Comfort and leather go hand-in-hand.
Now, hold up. We just talked about the durability and strength of leather—how can something so tough also be comfortable to sit on?
At first, your leather entertainment room furniture might be more on the firm side of things, sure, but give it a little bit of time, and it can be one of the most comfortable pieces of seating you own. Because of the natural fibers present, leather will get softer and more flexible over time as it molds to the unique shape of you, giving you a truly custom home theater seating experience.
Lending to the comfort factor, leather is a breathable material, and because of this, it’s quickly able to adapt to the temperature of the room and home it’s in. When you go to plop down on your leather seating after being outside in the summer, you’ll quickly be able to cool off, and vice-versa for the wintertime. It’s no wonder that leather makes for some of the most comfortable home theater seating out there.
Now that you know the gist of leather and what makes it a great material no matter the purpose, what are you waiting for? Those old fabric home theater seats are begging to be replaced with something you can cherish for years to come.