The WryGuy and I went furniture shopping today. We needed a new armchair for the living room (my FIL inadvertantly ruined ours when he stayed with us for two weeks) and a new sofa was on the horizon anyway, since ours was cheap, and is now battered and beaten up enough to be embarrassing.
So we bought a GORGEOUS dark leather camelback sofa (with velcro under the cushions so they don’t slide away on us!) and the world’s comfiest leather armchair. The armchair has a wonderful wood frame with wide, flat arms one could set a coffee cup on (if one were allowed to drink coffee while sitting in my new chair - as if!) and it’s sort of Mission-style and it’s covered in dark leather that matches the sofa - and it reclines!
We bought the “protection package” for both pieces, mainly because the Guy is a bit nervous that he might forget to remove a pen from his pocket or something and puncture it, thereby earning my withering scorn for all eternity. I’ve been told the leather will need to be conditioned once or twice a year, for which I assume there is an appropriate product.
I am thinking of velvet ropes to keep people out of the living room now*. It’s just that pretty.
I need a picture! I love beautiful comfy leather chairs!
We bought an expensive leather chair and our cats pretty much ruined it, but it’s comfortable and we love the cats, so it’s the price we have to pay.
Even though it’s a little scratched, it’s still presentable. The wine stain is the worst of it. (My niece jumped into my dad’s lap while he was holding a glass of red wine…after that it was downhill.)
It’s the sort of thing that happens when you’re elderly and infirm and too stubborn and proud to actually TELL your daughter-in-law you’re incontinent.
This is a good idea of what the new one looks like, only the leather on ours is a dark coffee color, that matches our new sofa.
Oh, yeeeaaaah…I’m feelin’ the love. I love the mission style. My coffee table and end tables are mission (making the chair overkill in my place) but I love that look!
Huge drag about the FIL. You will hide the new chair when he comes to visit again?
Methinks somebody is selling you a bill of goods. I’ve had leather furniture in my living room since ca. 1985 and I’ve never conditioned it. Not once. I just dust it with a dry cloth. It looks as good as the day I bought it.
i had to replace furniture for the same problem (different gender and not in law). after looking at a leather couch for 2 days i decided to order it.
unfortunatly it was on back order for 6 weeks. can’t wait that long for something to sit on. off to ikea. ended up with a bunch of funiture (new rocking chair even) and a way bigger couch.
Heh, my old sofa and chair on their way out are Ikea pieces. I loved them when we got them, and they served us well, but we’re ready for something with a little more PRESENCE now that we’re all middle-aged and stuff. nd yes, it’s going to take about six weeks for the new stuff to get here, but the current sofa will hold us up 'til then. The chair’s already in the garage and on its way to the curb for pickup Friday monring.
Sonia, I got the impression that conditioning the leather involves not a whole helluva lot more than swiping a cloth with some leather conditioning lotiony stuff over it twice a year or so. I’m sure it’s not a major undertaking (and if it is, we won’t be doing it, we’ll just let it age gracefully!)
The lotiony stuff (which they gave us with our purchase) is great for making surface scratches disappear. Unfortunately, our Large Domino Boy has paws like a lion…no amount of lotiony stuff will fix the damage he’s done.
We sort of started the repainting/repositioning process awhile back, when we (meaning my husband and brother) decided to knock out our old limestone fireplace and replace the firebox, add a gas line, tile the facade and replace the mantel. Doing so required the removal on that wall of some ugly old paneling, and replacing some drywall. So naturally, I leapt on the oppurtunity to have that wall painted a color that does not match the ugly old paneling on the remaining walls. Which means the rest of the ugly old paneling is starting to irritate my husband, which means it’s working its way up to infuriating, which means I’m gonna get my way
We’ve been gradually remodeling our house for about two years now. Ripped out carpeting and had real hardwood floors put in, painted a lot of stuff, added crown moulding to a couple rooms, replaced appliances and fixtures, etc. Still LOTS to do, but there is progress!
odd, i’m gonna be ripping out 70’s fake paneling in the next few weeks. i peeked behind the piece that is loose, and of course, it is glued and nailed into a painted over wallpapered plaster wall.
Yeah, no foolin’! Doesn’t matter what project we decide to take on, once we get going on it we realize “uh-oh…NOW we have to do THIS, too.” I took down a strip of loose wallpaper in the bathroom, and discovered that it had been applied to bare drywall. And WELL, too - so half the wall came down on my head. What started out as “I’ll take this down, wash the wall and repaint” turned into an emergency lesson in drywall repair!
