A couple of months back, we found an old but stylish leather couch sitting outside our neighbors' house with some other odd stuff. Turns out she was having an impromptu garage sale. We loved the couch, but it was a very worn and faded aqua. It cried out for... LEATHER PAINT!
Now that was an idea that got my creative energies excited! We bought the thing for $50, carried it across the street to our house, and inveigled Destiny into coming to a couch-painting party. After a fair amount of planning and three and a half hours of hands-on work, we had an amazing piece of new furniture on our hands!
The Lumiere paints (and amounts) we used were:
- Super Copper - 3-4 pints
- Metallic Rust - 8 oz.
- Crimson - 4 oz. - mixed with a small amount of Neopaque Black
- Halo Pink Gold - 4 oz.
Here's the story, in photos and captions.
Before. We cleaned and prepped the surface by rubbing with rags damped with rubbing alcohol.
I wanted to sponge the couch in rich warm colors that would work with our gold and dark red walls. We did a test piece with sea sponges and Lumiere on a small piece of hide.
Here are the painting supplies we used. We chose a small compact-foam roller for applying the base coat -- it went on quickly!
Rolling on Lumiere's Copper paint.
After one coat of copper paint. It didn't cover the aqua completely, but since we were going to do three layers of sponging, this was good enough.
We decided to use a synthetic sponge made for cleaning George Foreman Grills instead of the sea sponges we used on the sample piece. These would give us finer detail and wouldn't go soft from all the paint we would need to use. (Destiny blogged about using this cool tool recently.)
Sponging on Metallic Rust paint. This is when we noticed that the ridges in the sponge were making lines of sponged paint.
Off with the ridges!
After the base coat of Copper and sponging with Metallic Rust.
Sponging on the Crimson paint.
After adding the layer of Crimson. By the way, the rolled-on layer of Copper took only about 10 minutes to dry before we could paint another layer. The sponged layers took longer -- maybe 15-20 minutes, since some of the paint ends up in thick little blobs that need more time to dry.
Adding the final layer! It's called Halo Pink Gold.
Close up of the finished pattern.
Our new painted leather couch! We didn't seal the paint with Pledge with Future, as we do on shoes and bags, because we didn't want to make the surface any shinier. Also, with a sponged pattern like this, touch ups are invisible.
Happy couch painter enjoying the fruits of her labor!
Actually, this couch IS real leather. And it's been getting heavy wear for the last months -- since we painted it -- with no sign of peeling or cracking. I am thrilled with it!
Posted by: Margot | January 20, 2013 at 10:49 AM
after a while did the Paint start wearing off? DO u think it would work on real leather? Really nice idea.
Posted by: Laquanna Sesay | January 20, 2013 at 03:03 AM
It's wearing really well, too. And it gets a lot of wear. A silver ottoman sounds great! We can sell you Lumiere paint and ship it to Australia. Just send us a photo of the piece you are going to paint and I'll tell you how much paint you will need and what it will cost, plus what shipment costs will be. (The larger bottles are not listed in our online store.)
Posted by: Margot | November 21, 2012 at 08:41 PM
Great job you clever cookies! I even liked it just with the plain copper finish, probably because I'm too lazy to continue on :-) I'm thinking of painting my pleather ottomans a metallic silver too so I was very keen to see your blog. Thanks for the inspiration. Just need to find Lumiere paint in Australia.
Posted by: Nikki | November 21, 2012 at 08:26 PM
Take photos! I can't wait to see. You can order 8 oz bottles of Lumiere from Dharma.
Posted by: Margot | June 29, 2012 at 07:06 PM
Great idea. I have a leather loveseat and I cant't wait!
Suzanne
Posted by: Suzanne | June 29, 2012 at 02:53 PM
Actually, Destiny and I are pretty amazed too!
Posted by: Margot | June 28, 2012 at 10:02 PM
Frigging Amazing!!!
Posted by: leilani | June 28, 2012 at 06:14 PM
Thanks! I should have included a note about something that made it extra fun -- we did the painting as a birthday part for me. And I AM enjoying it -- sitting on the couch now as I write this.!
Posted by: Margot | June 28, 2012 at 01:16 PM
I've been waiting to see this! lovely. enjoy.
Posted by: wearinbeads | June 28, 2012 at 12:26 PM