Non matching or matching sofas?

[flupcake]

Advice please!
I need to get new sofas for our living room. The sofas will be next to each other in a L shape, and both will be two seater as due to the window and doorway they can't be any wider. (I can't have a corner sofa because it would be in front of a bay window so it would look odd).

So my question is, would it be better to have the sofas matching or mismatched? Originally I had thought matching would be neater, but now I am thinking it might overpower the room (which isn't huge).
DH is quite keen on leather as its so easy to keep clean with DCs, but I worry it looks a bit dated.
Or a compromise could be one leather sofa (the one the DCs mainly use), and the other a fabric sofa in a nice contrasting colour?

I've looked online for ideas but most suggest one sofa and two armchairs which wouldn't work for a family of 5....

The style we both quite like is mid-century.

Any tips welcomed! I've never bought new sofas before and am scared of the wrong decision.

erinwilliamsondesign.com/design-crisis/too-match-or-not-to-match-that-is-the-question
mismached can look way better, but is also much more difficult to get right
I i were you I would get them from the same place and ask the store to place them side by side to see. leather andfabric seems a good idea.

I just googled mismached sofas, many great examples, better than the link.

Have you considered getting a bay-window friendly corner sofa custom made? It's not as expensive as you might think - yes it's not bargain-basement but most sofas are made to-order when you buy them rather than being factory-made on production line in advance so a custom product may be only a modest amount more than the price brackets you see in the showrooms. Look at the sketches towards the bottom of the page at www.sofamagic.co.uk/corner-sofas - could something like that work? If your bay window doesn't go right to the corner of the room, how big a triangle would be cut off if a 45 degree bit of sofa continued out from the bay window to the wall? if it wouldn't be too huge you could put a standard lamp there or perhaps a little corner shelving tower?

Quebec - thanks for the article! That is exactly our dilemma!

Yes I think we will go to a large store like John Lewis and look at the sofas together.

Cex - I have tried to imagine how the corner sofa would work in the bay. I think to put the corner bit into the bay would look a bit odd? And otherwise the corner sofa will stick out into the room with a strange gap between the sofa and the window. (The bay window doesn't extend all the way to the corner of the room).

I have seen some curved sofas but that could look odd matched with a regular sofa!

My aunt had a chocolate brown leather sofa and a sort of mushrooms coloured fabric sofa in a thick texture.

I think the key with mismatched fabric is to get the exact same shape and style sofas and let the only difference be the covering.

I was imagining something like this (the green circle is a tall lamp or could be a plant or something depending on your decor). If the triangle cut off represents a huge amount of the available floorspace then it's a less good idea, but most houses I'm familiar with that have bay windows, it would only be less than half a square metre.

Don't know where the doors are obviously so might be the mirror image of this arrangement.

Just an idea of course. I won't be offended if you don't like it