With a family of five, I think a large corner/modular sofa would be a practical choice and would also work well to help define the two separate spaces in the large living room. All of the fabric nominations look nice, although I'm personally not a huge fan of the one with stripes. I think they all provide a Hamptons feel. If your family has young children, then I would be tempted to go with the most stain resistant and hard wearing of the short-listed fabrics.

The most kid and pet friendly couch material is leather. So far our blue leather couch has coped with 18 years of toddlers falling asleep and weeing on it, cat vomit, Easter eggs melting between the cushions, spilt milk, spilt orange juice, spilt red wine, spilt coffee, and muddy dog paws. It just wipes clean. Our white leather chair is just as durable and is now 24 years old and just starting to look grubby. So go with beige or cream if you want. It would be a lovely choice, just make sure it is leather. Black or mid or dark brown would also look lovely with that beautiful rug but I think lighter colours would look fresher. Don't be at all scared to use light coloured leather.

True. It is all about taste. I think the production cost of leather is probably why it costs more. That is true about spills. But forget biro or what cat claws can do to leather. I adore the look of leather- especially tan/caramel and don't get me started on the chesterfield I covet! Alas not for me again. Haunted by the self-awareness of the sweaty patch from a summer afternoon!! No I didn't (pee my pants), really!

We built our house in 1975 and had a similar problem; A teeny tiny family room with too many doors. After several years of squeezing ourselves into this poorly functioning excuse of a "family" room, which has entrances in every corner bar one, plus an entry into the kitchen and sliding door to outside, in a fit of frustration, I decided that our under-utilised formal lounge/dining would be used as a living room with the TV, although we chose to keep the dining table in that room as it is a long narrow room. I made this change 26 years ago. The family room is now just a sitting area with one 2.5 seater couch and a side table at each end, no TV and is a great space for a few people to congregate in to keep the cook company or just to read. However it would have worked equally well with the dining table there. In any case, because of all the doorways, it is really just a walk-through area, but now feels spacious and "settled" instead of crowded and messy. I can recommend the change.....you will feel much less at "sixes and sevens" with your home.