DIY Explained // Painted Leather Furniture

Hello team! Hope everyone is keeping warm and cozy through this winter and staying out of trouble! Trouble for me means hitting up all the New Year sales and buying all the furniture I want so desperately but know I shouldn’t.

In an attempt to distract myself I knew I needed to get my hands dirty with a little DIY up-cycle on something that I nearly loved but always knew just wasn’t quite right. I bought these chairs off of craigslist when we were still traveling in Japan and had yet to land back in California. I was so excited to start building up our new home that I jumped the gun on these gorgeous leather grey chairs.

Except they didn’t end up being grey. When they were delivered – they definitely were this hard to place shade of green.

I know its hard to believe – so here’s a picture for proof:

Can you see what I’m saying? The leather is more of a frosty Lambs Ear plant than any sort of grey.

Lambs Ear Plant:

Lambs Ear Chairs:

As you can prob tell from the tone of this article, I was never really in love with the color but I lived with it. I lived with it for over a year and half and then I stumbled across this article from Apartment Therapy and all my wildest dreams actually seemed possible!

I jumped onto Amazon and immediately ordered Angelus Cognac Acrylic/leather Dye 1 Quart/ 944 Ml and Angelus Brand Acrylic Leather Paint Finisher No. 600 – 4oz and counted the minutes until the box hit my front door!

The instructions say to prep the leather (I used 100% acetone and a cotton ball) and then layer several light coats with a foam sponge making sure to wait several hours between each pass.

First layer:

The coverage was pretty damn good considering the difference between the original and the rich cognac color I wanted to achieve. You could still see through to the base in certain areas and all of the piping was being more stubborn than the larger stretches of leather.

Second coat:

The second coat was like 95% there – but again the piping trim and all the nooks and crannies were def going to require another layer.

Third coat:

By the third coat I was more than happy with the finish. I used the Angelus Acrylic Finisher to seal it all off and at that point I probably could have put them back in the living room but I was slightly paranoid about anyone touching them quite yet.

So, I waited about 36 hours before taking them off the drop cloth and letting anyone even look at them. Absolutely 100% overkill but I just wanted to be certain that the husbands tendency to leave a trail of crumbs behind him and the pup’s tendency to sleep in this chair by the window for 18 hours out of the day.

I know what your thinking – but whats it actually like? Is it all tacky and stiff? Absolutely not!! It doesn’t actually feel any different than the original green leather.

The only thing I could say is that its slightly “louder” than before. There is definitely more sound coming from the armchairs when someone sits down but I have a feeling that will fade over time. This also isn’t a deal breaker for me as these aren’t our main seats in the living room. Guests can make as much noise as they’d like! ha!

I couldn’t be happier with the result & now we just wait to see if it all holds up! I’ll make sure to keep everyone updated but we are about a week in and it all looks good!

xxx,

:: UPDATE ::

I’ve been aspiring…

I’ve been aspiring for lush, smooth, buttery leather….

Leather that reminds you of whiskey cocktails, dessert sunsets and dripping caramel…

And I was nearly there …

But not quite…

The color to me was just too deep, too red, lacking that buttery feel….

I know these images are of real leather – tanned and stained but with that natural tone that I was so aspiring towards.

So I started to rethink my original DIY and look at other Angelus paint colors that might be better suited towards my dream color.

Not this deep brick I had ended up with…

I couldn’t find anything that specifically matched what I was looking for but this <a href=”http://Angelus 1 oz Acrylic Leather Paint (Vachetta)“>Angelus Leather Paint in Vachetta was pretty similar and I knew I could probably come up with a custom blend with the original Cognac that could be closer to what I was looking for.

I played around with a a few proportions for the mix.

Two – thirds seemed about right to me so I did a super un mathematical mix of the two based completely on eyesight. It worked OK for me – but about 80% of the way through the project I ran out of this custom mix and had to eye a second batch. This was stressful. This would have been far less stressful had I actually measured out the mixture in the first place vs relying on my visual instinct. I don’t even have that good of vision. SMH.

First Pass…

Already soooo much better!

Butter, butter, butter! Gimme all dat butter!

The first couple layers look washy – but then after a few passes it all blends in so beautifully and I am so incredibly happy with the result.

To recap – Remember the first go at this DIY –

And now the final product –

ps. Putting this post together may have turned me onto a new color combinations … Cognac and Lambs Ear? Whatcha think?