Online Leather Couch Repair Help

I thought I'd break my (almost 1 year!?) online silence (well, on this Blog anyway) to rave about a great resource I stumbled upon, which hopefully may help others as much as it helped me.

The background goes like this; I bought a Leather couch off TradeMe a while back (sight unseen) and when we got it home we found that it hadn't really been looked after very well. I obviously hadn't been conditioned or cleaned properly - which you need to, with Leather. The seams and edges were pretty well worn, and there was also a good deal of white paint stuck to the back of it (where they had obviously painted the lounge and pushed the couch up against it while the walls were still wet). I am selling the couch, so wanted to do my best to tidy it up, so the person I sold it to didn't have the unfortunate surprise that we did, upon closer inspection.

Searching around a bit I found Paul Ford's "Leather Help" website. I have to say it's such a great site, not only because the information and photos are easy to follow and very helpful, but I think its a great example of using the web to put information 'out there' for free, for all to use and benefit from. Sure, Paul sells products through the website, and indeed I bought a couple of Pelle kits from him, but the how-to information etc. is all there for you to use with no purchase necessary.

I bought the DIY Leather Repair Kit, and pretty much the next day I received it by Courier. Following the instructions from the website I repaired every scuff, scratch and wear from the couch - and there were a lot of them, believe me. Sure it took some time - hours in fact - but only due to the sheer scale of the problem. But the results were nothing short of miraculous. Really amazing how well this stuff works. I'm not sure if the photos will do it any justice, but suffice it to say that even the large splashes of white paint were well covered and are hardly noticeable (only as an area a little shinier than the rest).

So if you're ever in need of some light (or even pretty heavy) repair work on a Leather couch (cat scratches etc), and you don't feel like sending it off to some expensive professional, I highly recommend Paul Ford's Leather Help website. His tips, photos and products are worth their weight in gold! And his after sales email follow ups were a nice touch too. Thanks Paul!