Your first home is always something magical. Starting from the ground up with furnishings, decor, color and everything else. I’m always keeping lists and making idea boards of what I am going to include when I finally leave the wonderful world of renting.

At the top of my list is a leather couch to be the basic building block of my front room. I want something simple, like Diamond’s Berkley sofa. It’s unassuming, but so classy. Clean lines, neutral color, attractive and comfortable- it’s everything I’m looking for. It will look great for years, and will outlast plenty of my design-craze phases, fitting with each new one as well as with the last, I’m sure. Whether I’m going for modern and urban, vintage, or anything else that will be outdated in twenty years, my leather couch will fit right in, and will age gracefully in the middle of whatever else I may inflict on my home.

I’m also always tempted by those distressed leather sofas that look like they will transport you to some leathery heaven the second you are seated. Really, there are options for anything you could ever want, from uber-modern to something you’d see in great-grandpa’s ranch house. And they’re all supremely comfortable.

What is it about leather that is always so appealing? It’s the opposite of that orange and brown paisley you loved a few years ago; it will never go out of style. Or maybe it’s better to say it’s always in style, which that paisley never should have been.

Caring for leather is so easy, too, and it will help it look like new for as long as you have it. Aniline leather is that beautiful soft, wrinkled leather, and just needs to be rubbed down from time to time with a leather cleaning solution. For pigmented leather, which is treated and stain-resistant, all you need to do is wipe up spills quickly and with a soft cloth. Nubuck leather is suede, and takes the most care to maintain. You’ll need to treat it regularly with nubuck leather cleaner to protect it from body oils (gross, right?) and food spills. All leather couches should be vacuumed and dusted monthly, and all spills should be treated immediately. And regular wipe-downs with leather cleaner are never a bad idea. I tell you, by the time I get my own leather couch in my own house, I will know everything there is to know about them. My couch will probably last until the Apocalypse if I take care of it the way I should.

Next in my house planning are my bookshelves. I probably had more books by the time I was seven years old than most people accumulate in a lifetime. I love books, I love bookshelves, and one day my home will most definitely have a library. With a secret passageway. But that’s another story. The point is that I have a lot of books, and I need quite a bit of space to store them. I’m done with those flimsy particle board shelves that I always feel guilty stacking one more book on, but you know what? No more. My next bookshelves will  stand up to anything I can fit on them, and they will bear the weight of my collection like a bookshelf should.

After my bookshelves and leather couch, the other furnishing don’t matter too much to me. Instead, I start thinking about the color scheme. I love the look of a dark couch and dark shelves, then cream or beige walls and black trim and baseboards. The shelves are covered in old books with handwritten dedications, and one or two rich accent pillows are placed on the couch. But not terrible accent pillows that you never know what to do with when you sit down, some that are small enough to not cause a problem, and soft enough to actually use a pillow.

From there, I’ll hang a few pieces of art on the wall that I haven’t been able to pass up even though right now I have nowhere to hang them. One is a reproduction of a Friedrich, beautiful earth tones that communicate the stillness of nature, and another photograph of an old clipper ship that I just love.

And in a few years, when I decide I’m tired of my bookshelves, or I want new art hanging, or I decide to paint my walls (again), my leather couch will always stay.