Leather Furniture Restoration: Cleaning, Redyeing, & Refinishing
We offer different restoration processes for different types of leather furniture. The cleaning of leather can be compared to different finishes on wood. Like wood, leather may be "painted" or stained. The three main types of leather are protected, analine, and nubuck:
- Protected leather: Leather that has been "painted" and covered in a plasticized coating. The finish may be matte or gloss.
- Analine leather: Leather that has been stained with a transparent dye and has no finish.
- Nubuck leather: Like suede, nubuck leather has a slight nap or abraded effect.
Cleaning
Because of the polymer coating, protected leather is easiest to clean because there are many powerful cleaning agents available, including degreasers and ink removers. Because of its natural state, analine leather is more sensitive than protected leather and therefore, there are fewer cleaning options available than with protected leather. Finally, because its natural texture is abraded, nubuck leather is the most sensitive and therefore, has the fewest cleaning options.
Redyeing/Restoring/Refinishing
Protected leather is the easiest to restore. "Repainting" of spots or the whole piece of furniture can hide permanent stains. There are 70 stock color choices available with custom color matching also available. Refinishing is available for protected leather in matte or combined gloss/matte. Refinishing seals color in and gives back the "new leather smell." Small holes, scrapes and damage can be repaired with liquid vinyl mixed with colored dye.
Analine leather can be restored by redyeing the entire piece of furniture to match the original color or one shade darker. However, like restaining wood, redyeing leather can cover damage due to sunfades but not due to marker stains. There are limited stock color choices available and custom dye matching is also available. Small holes, scrapes, and damage can be repaired but will be more visible than repairs made on protected leather.
Nubuck leather cannot be restored, only maintained. For maintenance of nubuck leather, two gentle, chemical processes (similar to drycleaning) are available. Although most liquid spills or heavy soils cannot be removed through these procedures, sanding is an option.
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