After 15 years with an American Leather sectional couch, we are ready to replace it. The cushions are foam core with down and feather wrapping. The feathers come out by the thousands, I am sadly not exaggerating. The leather holds them in, but the black knit fabric backs and sides of the cushions are just a mess. It's like plucking chickens to try and get most of them out, but impossible to do. I am looking for advice on a better quality line than American Leather, at least when it comes to securing the feathers in the fabric inserts!

Thank you all so much for your responses! Just to follow up: I called the sales person at Macy's who originally sold these to us. She was very understanding and said "yuck" when I explained it to her--she knew what I was talking about but said they have never heard of a problem with their furniture. She is getting her manager and her rep involved with this. I feel like if they are willing to help at all, she will be the one to make it happen. Also, something I was INCORRECT about with my previous post. I said that you can access the feathers--you cannot. The zipper only removes the cover from the foam cushion. The cover is like a duvet except the back of it is more like interfacing than fabric--thus, letting many feathers escape. So because of this, I won't be able to restuff with something else. My only hope, I'm thinking, would be to take this off and wrap the foam cushion in batting or something. Not sure how that would work as the covers are very tight and very very hard to get back on--I think batting would get all bunched up. I must have "dreamt" I could accesss this or just wishful thinking on my part-ha!:) Anyway, I have read all of your resposnes and very much appreciate them. Annz, I looked at that link and all I can say is "yuck" to what I have! I don't have "down", I have "feathers" and they are bigger than what this site shows. Obviously very poor quality. Thank you for the link. Thanks again everyone!

I know exactly what you mean about the down smell. It seems that many of the new decorator pillows are filled with the sticky stuff. I have purchased some. Some of them stink up the room, while others only smell if I stick my nose into the item. One of the worse offenders were pillows that I ended up putting out on my porch. The smell gives me a headache and stuffs my nose up. DH and I once rented a beautifully decorated and remodeled beach house. As soon as I walked into the main bedroom, the smell hit me! There were two brand new white down filled couches in there. I knew that there was little chance of me being able to sleep in the room, but I had to find a way. We could not move the couches out of the room. Of course my DH could not smell the odor! I ended up having to get an odor disk for the room, which was a feat in itself because I don't like perfume-y smells. Had to get one that smelled like Gain. Yuk!!!

This new HG has some great stuff (pillows - decorative and bed) as well as nice tableware and interesting glass accessories. They also have a lot of overpriced junk. They move things around constantly and I guess like all HGs they have very limited stock. My store has several clearance aisles that are overflowing with crap and women are digging through it like they expect to find the Holy Grail in there. The store is so tightly packed that it's really hard to maneuver carts through the aisles. This HG also has some rather indiscreet employees. One woman asked them to wrap a chair so that it wouldn't get all wet in the rain as she loaded it in her vehicle. A young woman working behind the register said loudly to her coworker, "What does she expect? SHE is the one who chose to go out shopping on a rainy day." The woman who rang me up today got into a verbal skirmish with another cashier and ended up telling her, "Don't tell me how to do my job!" I know they don't get paid much to work there, but I wouldn't put up with that kind of nasty snark if I managed the place. It seems to be pervasive in that store. OTOH, I DID just purchase six down filled pillows there for $135 including tax so maybe I'll just shut it now. ;-)