New sofa that doesn't match the old one.

[Knottingley]

We have a 13 yo three piece suite which was expensive/good quality and which I love. It still in really good condition and doesn't need replacing.

It consists of large sofa, small sofa and arm chair which fitted just nicely in the living room at our old house. We've been here 10 years and it's never really fitted. We really need 2 large sofas, I've tried lots of arrangements but the chair always looks like it's been squeezed in/is out of place.

We have a very large dining room which has mostly been used as a playroom but the Dc are getting older and we'd like to make one end of it a 2nd living room. I was thinking of using the small sofa and the chair in there and getting one large sofa to go with the original one in the main living room.

Is it a bad idea? I suppose my concerns are that it will look odd and that the 13yo sofa will need replacing at some point and then I'll either have odd sofas again or have to replace something that's new.

I have 2 sofas that do 't match but are almost the same colour so it looks fine. Or you could get a checked or striped sofa in the same shades of your current sofa, it is plain, or get a plain one in one of the colours if not. Do you see what I mean? Or get leather if it is currently fabric or vice versa.

Sort of similiar but different, referencing each other. It works.

Thank's Lagoon. That's what I was thinking. The existing sofa has a kind of check pattern so I was thinking of picking one of the colours from that.

In terms of the style of sofa, would you go for similar or completely different? (can't get exactly the same)

Vaguely similar. I have sort of 30s looking sofas but not the same shape.

I have a grey leather sofa (wouldn't have been my choice but it came with DH) and a red fabric sofa. Sounds awful but looks quite good. I think rooms can actually look better when they're not all colour schemed and matchy matchy.

If you try to match it but can't it looks obvious and wrong, if that makes any sense. However a good leather sofa or something that works with rather attempts to match your old one would be a good idea.

*rather than

Apparently its considered posher not to have matching sets - I think it comes from those families where good furniture is inherited rather than bought.
It's can look really nice as long as both sofas have something to tie them together (colour/style)
We have just added a JL mink coloured sofabed to our living room and it goes really well with the MultiYork cream sofa we had. They are both of a traditional style (although not exactly matching) and pick out colours in our curtains.