Six months is exactly the point where a footstool stops being furniture you photographed for the group chat and starts being furniture you actually put your feet on, spill things near, and occasionally use as a step to reach the top shelf when nobody’s looking. Which is when the real opinions show up.
The comparison that keeps coming up around here is the old tan one that lived in the first shared flat for four years versus the newer chestnut brown one that replaced it. Half the team thinks the new one is a clear upgrade, softer leather, better cushioning underneath, doesn’t creak like it’s filing a complaint every time someone sits on it wrong. The other half is quietly loyal to the old tan one, cracks and all, on the grounds that it earned every one of those cracks and the new one hasn’t earned anything yet, it’s just new.
Here’s what nobody expected going in: the arms and edges tell you everything within about four months, way before the middle does. The seat cushion can look pristine for years if you’re gentle with it, but the corners get knocked by shoes, dragged across floors, used as an armrest by whoever’s lying on the sofa in the wrong direction, and that’s where cheap leather gives itself away fast. The tan one went patchy at one corner within the first winter and never fully recovered, it just has A Corner now, permanently lighter, permanently a bit tired looking. The chestnut one, so far, is holding its color evenly at the edges in a way that’s honestly a little suspicious, we’re still waiting for it to slip.
What changed after the honeymoon period wasn’t the leather at all, it was the height. Everyone loved how it looked in the room for about three weeks, then someone’s knees started complaining that it sat too low for actually resting feet on properly, and it got demoted to “thing the dog sleeps under.” That’s the bit nobody photographs.
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We will say this without reservation: buy the one with a bit of texture already in the grain, not the smooth glassy finish, because smooth shows every scratch like it’s been personally wronged. Learned that one the hard way with a stool that looked immaculate in the shop and looked like it had been in a minor car accident within eight weeks.
Nobody has fully won the tan versus chestnut argument and honestly nobody’s trying that hard to settle it anymore, they’ve both just quietly become the footstool in their respective rooms, cracked corner and all, suspiciously even color and all. If it’s still getting used for feet, elbows, laptops, and the occasional standing on to reach a lightbulb six months in without anyone actively resenting it, that’s the only verdict that’s ever mattered here.
