I think you need some color inspiration. Perhaps a design seed will help... or find art, a plate, a piece of fabric or something else that has a color scheme you like incorporating the red and the brown and then play with the balance of those colors in each of the rooms to help define the separate spaces....put use the main color from one room as an accent in another....

Good morning everyone! I am really, really appreciating all your feedback. Oceana, your suggestion about checking out the antique stores and CL is super, and I probably should have done that before falling in love with this ivory one. And, Squirrel, the sofa will be in our only living room, the Great Room, and thus will be used often, chiefly by ME, since DH loves his leather recliner so much and never sits anywhere else. It is an excellent brand--forgot its name, but I instantly recognized it as a top brand. The owner of the store, who loves it as much as I do and obviously chose it for her store, went carefully with me over all its strong points in terms of construction. The fabric is super-heavy brocade, but very soft to the feel,not scratchy like a lot of tapestry-types. Almost like a chenille brocade. I wanted something that was super comfortable, good-looking--even striking--well made, and something NOT in the clumsy style of so many of today's sofa, etc. I am off now to see if it's still available, and if so, thanks to all the encouragement here, I think I'll buy it. It'll be fall before we move into our new house, if then (still at the design stage, but in TX construction can go fast in the summer b/c of few weather delays), but the store will keep it in their warehouse for 90 days and then I can have them deliver it to our present house and I'll put it in a big guest room where we'll be storing any new purchases. I'll take my camera with me today so I can take pix of it to post here, for all of you who've given me such good feedback! And then, as the years go buy, if I regret the color choice, as has been pointed out here, I could always have it recovered. I am a past master at THAT. My two wing chairs and my club chairs, excellent furniture, have been reupholstered once for the wings and the new covering for the clubs will be the 3rd or 4th reiteration of them. I totally believe in buying top quality and recycling by reupholstering, something I can't seem to teach my own offspring. Off to shop!

I have Flexsteel sofas and love them. They are week made sturdy and have firm cushions. You can select lots of carefree fabrics too

When my DH and I bought our first house I let him pick the couch. He was SO picky and adamant about it needing to be comfortable and not be girly (admittedly I had a yellow floral couch when we met, and I loved it). We shopped forever and finally found a couch he liked that i didn't hate the looks of. And it wasn't cheap! 9 years. 9 YEARS we had that couch and he hated it after one year. HE DIDN'T EVEN LOVE THE COUCH! I will never let him pick anything else out that has that much impact on our lives haha. There are a lot of factors in picking out furniture that will work in your home and family, and how manly it looks is way down the bottom of the list. Can you turn the couch around and put the back against the tv wall? This is your main living room, not a guys game room. I bet he picked out that big ass tv and speakers, and that odd bird art on the wall. and probably the dog! He can find a man couch that actually fits in your room, and that you don't hate and count down the years before you feel it's "used" enough to get rid of. Can you hate that couch for 9 YEARS?