Keeping it Simple

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Tutorial Tuesday: Dyeing Leather

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**** Post update: I would do this to a chair or inexpensive piece of furniture but I wouldn’t do it on a couch or in a car, I would let professionals do that.  Make sure your piece is leather and not pleather.****
By now you all know that I love garage sales! Well I really do. Sometimes I just have to not go because I don’t want to over clutter my house or I’m not up for a huge project that seems to happen after a good find. Well about a month ago, I found this chair for $5

I had to look beyond the ugly color and the horrible dust and see the potential of it.
After many hours of work, I finally turned the chair into this.
Now it’s sitting in the corner of my bedroom. I love having it there, it’s really comfy to sit in, but most of all, I just love looking at it!!
When I got it, I thought that maybe I would just paint it, but then I found out that I could dye the leather. So now I’m going to show you how to dye leather!
What you will need:
-Leather Dye
-Acetone
-Spray bottle
-Gloves
-Cloths (or an old sock :D)
-Leather finisher
You can actually combine dyes if you need to. The brown that I got wasn’t dark enough, so I combined it with a black dye to get the dark brown. I got my dye from Leather Unlimited but you can also get it from Ebay.

1) First you will need to clean the leather with acetone and a cloth. Using a sock, I went all over the chair. (I did clean it with soap and water to get all the dust off)

This is how it looked after the acetone

Notice the different in color, it really cleans it!

Now it’s time to dye the leather!!
2) With water, I sprayed the chair to make it damp. Because I had such a big area, I would spray a little area at a time and then dye it and then spray another area.

3) Put the dye onto the cloth and wipe it all over the chair. (Wear gloves!! I made this mistake and was cleaning dye off my hands for a week). Dye the whole area trying to make it as even as possible

4) After each coat, take a dry cloth and rub off the excess dye

Do as many coats that you need. This is what mine looked like after 6 coats of dye. I let it dry about 1 1/2 hours between coats

Now you have to use a finisher to protect the leather and dye.

5) Using the spray bottle, I sprayed the finisher on the chair. Like the water, I did a little at a time.

6) Then with a damp cloth, I spread the finish evenly. I used long strokes to do this.

The finish leaves a nice gloss!

Because the cushion was ripped and not in good shape, I just put fabric over it.
I know that other people actually take off the original cover and make a completely different cover for it, but I don’t. I actually just sewed it straight onto the cushion. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I’m too afraid to touch the foam that in the cushion…. 🙂
Once the fabric was on the cushion, I then took an 1″ grosgrain ribbon and put it over the lip of the cushion. Using a yarn needle, I then sewed it onto it.
I love the way it looks altogether!

I wanted to use a flowery fabric but my husband didn’t care for it, so I made a pillow to add a little girly touch 🙂

This is actually a really easy process! You can dye shoes, belts, purses and furniture!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  13. Thank you so much for posting this! I have a leather chair we bought 3 years ago on discount because the color had rubbed off in spots. I've been hiding it under throw blankets, but now I know how to fix it!

  16. This was such a wonderful tutorial, I love the idea of putting grosgrain over the welting, too. You should be very proud. I wish we could go to garage sales together :).

  18. My eyebrows shot up in disbelief when I saw that after picture. It looks so good. And I had no idea that you could dye leather!

    Thank you for participating in the Creative Therapy session at Life in the Pitts!

  20. How very pretty that turned out. Very ingenious.

    I found you via Simply Designing. Glad I did. Come visit me anytime over at Pittypat Paperie. I'm having a giveaway for a personalized umbrella. Diane

  27. Amazing transformation! I would have never thought you could make over leather! So clever and creative! Fantastic job! Thanks so much for joining The Sunday Showcase. I greatly appreciate it! Hope you are enjoying your week! ~ Stephanie Lynn

  32. Thank you for this! I have a leather couch that is discolored by the sun on one end. And here and there by wear.
    I'm also interested that you don't remove the old upholstery. I was thinking of that for a chair, nice to see your technique.
    Kathy

  33. Could you email me and let me know if I can do this with upholstery? I have a very comfortable hand me down chair that is a super ugly pink. I would love to keep the chair, can't afford to reupholster it professionally, but want it to be a classic black. Any ideas? 🙂 Heather

  34. Hi Kaysi, it looks great! I'm looking into doing this to my couches. About how much dye and finisher do you suggest I buy? I have a love seat and a standard 3 seater couch. Thanks for your help!

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