Your last images look a whole lot better. amazing how much you can learn from this forum as a onlooker
Having taken a look at the .blend i tried making sense out of it:
1 Almost none of your materials has a spec shader added to it.
2 The shaders are also a bit weird as the leather shader is using the displace input, but you dont have enough mesh detail to see the displace. Additionally the displace feature is only available in the experimental feature set and your render is set to supported feature set, which means it doesn’t do anything anyways. Use bump or normal maps its much easier to control unless you need the extra geometry.
3 Additionally, why are your subdiv samples 4 in preview and only 2 in rendered?
4 Also, not using the environment in the renderlayers means that you dont actually use GI, which in turn means you dont generate any rays for the portal area lights to use, which means they are entirely pointless once you hit F12. This also means that you have nothing reflecting anything. I realized this when i looked at the glass table that seemed to reflect the ceiling but not the outside window.
5 Theres some weird use of shrinkwrap modifiers which i dont understand, but which create some strange effects with the normals on some objects (pillows fex). You also didnt use any smooth surfaces.
Bevel ALL of your edges…everything looks very “fake”. No offense. Also, you have put way too many of those wavy pendant lamp/chandelier lights in your scene. Typically, something like that is a focal point for a room, not just scattered randomly around. I like your persistence…you’ll get there.