Adventures in Leather Gathering

Mandi is a blogger at Vintage Revivals who is a girl after my own heart; in so much that she thinks outside of the box, and always is coming up with new and unusual ways to do things.
When I read her posts on skinning a couch for it's leather: I knew I needed to follow suit. Not to straight up copy her: I've always wanted to work with leather, but gag at the super high prices for raw leather from fabric stores.

After getting this bug in my brain, I stalked Craigslist and found a couple leather beauties. The below pictures are not the exact ones I got, but VERY close.

1 white leather couch

The 1984 special.

1 turquoise/dark green chair and ottoman

More floppy 80's styling.
The one I picked up was a bit darker.

1 dark tan chair

This chair is actually attractive.
The one I got for free was NOT.
It was half vinyl and one arm was broken off.

I did not have the chance to take pictures of the real items, because they were picked up and quickly skinned before they ever got home.
The couch especially was a ridiculous operation:
I grabbed it from way across town using my dad's truck one night after dark, then found a secluded parking lot with a light under which to disassemble the thing (in a good part of town). The cushions were my friends; I could just unzip and rip the leather off of those suckers.
The body took a bit more work.
I hopped up into the bed of the truck and onto the couch itself to cut around the edges of each side with an exacto knife. A couple people driving past slowed down and stared at the crazy girl attacking a couch, but hey, thats life in the big city.....or the burbs. Crazy does not acknowledge socio-geographic boundaries, and I take this show on the road. Anyway.....I was able to get 90%+ of the leather off the couch.
With the cab full of white, wrinkly (slightly smelly) leather; I went to my condo cluster and backed up to the most secluded dumpster enclosure on the property. This also happened to be the dumpster that I'd repeatedly seen large furniture left beside (even though you are not supposed to leave furniture outside the dumpster), so I didn't feel too bad about abandoning the couch frame there. I still wrestled it into the enclosure fast as I could, and promptly drove away like I'd stolen something.
A short time later, the chairs were both able to be shoehorned into the back of my Subaru Outback. This happened on separate trips, as each chair by itself caused me to scoot the seat waaay up and practice some 'old lady' driving skills. They got skinned inside a different enclosure (since the first was full o couch) and tossed in the dumpster, which my sticker-for-the-rules-self felt better about than the couch.

Most of the time. Kinda.

I now had a big pile of funky smelling leather that needed to be cleaned and conditioned. It REALLY needed to be cleaned since after being left on the floor for 20 mins, a cat uncharastically decided it was a better place to pee than the litter box. Yum. Thanks jerk face.

I'm taking to you, cat.

I asked Dr.Google if I could wash leather, but he did not give me a solid answer. So, I went ahead and did it anyway; with regular detergent and white vinegar for good measure. After the first wash, the pieces seemed much cleaner, but I ran them through again just to make darn sure I'd done all I could to address the weird leather smell (not to mention the cat pee).
I tossed em in the dryer after this for 10 mins or so on high heat to get rid of the dripping-wet excess moisture. When they were damp to the touch I turned down the temperature and threw in a bunch of liquid fabric softener with a little vegetable oil to prevent any drying out and cracking. They came out smelling purdy and feeling soft, having soaked up all the softener and oil.

The pieces from the brown chair looked dryer than the rest after this so I re-oiled them with a little bit of vegetable oil.

Beans wanted to lick every inch of those suckers during ze oiling.
Wierdo #1 could not control himself and got relegated to the office behind a closed door.

Using an iron on medium heat (with a linen dish towel barrier) flattened out any wrinkles or waviness. I did this for a couple pieces with good results and will do the others as I use them.

And viola. A big pile of clean, cheap leather for future projects. I've already made a purse for my mister's sister, and have lots of other ideas in mind (see pinterest board here).

Those are clearly not my hands.
I can only dream of having long nails and a well kept manicure.

She requested a flap style similar to this, but as a purse, with additional specifications of: "foldy, inconspicuous, and big enough to fit a phone, wallet, and keys." Also to have a shoulder strap long enough so the purse would fit snugly under her arm, just above the waist.
I used a coral pink linen napkin on sale from Anthro ($3) for a needed pop of color on the inside, since the outside would be simple and unadorned. A few lines of stitching held it securely to the leather separator piece and provided the inside some texture. Two straight seams up the sides to close the ends like an envelope, one handle later; and it was complete. I waxed the edges and made a little tag from scraps (imprinted with a heated metal spoon handle) to finish it off.

She was SUPER pleased and has now offered to help me create and run an Etsy store. I really should take her up on it.



-Lindsay

Pillow Talk

My Bf threw out his back  last weekend, so I ran into to Bed Bath & Beyond to grab him a heating pad, an ice pack, and some goodies while his non-mobile self waited in an 'almost comfortable' position in the car.
I told him I would be quick.

Uhhh.......about that: I should have known better.
No trip to BB&B sticks to the list. It's unpossible.

My intentions were good, but the '$4.99 & Under' pillow bin was better. 

I may have definitely went a little pillow crazy.

Mostly neutral colors with interesting texture, embroidery, or accents that go well with the furniture and fabrics already in my house.

11 pillows for about $45, when most of them were in the $30/$40 dollar range each at full retail price. Not too shabby!

Fill types:

5 are down-filled, the rest are cotton

Coverings:

4 are silk, 3 felted wool, 1 chartreuse sweater-knit, 2 cotton, and 1 HAS SPARKLES!!

Captn. Sparkles has already received a kidnap threat. But you just go ahead and try Michelle; I will take you down like a cheetah on an antelope. Except with way more shrieking, wheezing, and jiggling from both of us. Somebody might loose a shoe or an earing. Who knows, it could get crazy. Moral of the story: not worth it.

Idle treats aside; 'That's an unreasonable amount of pillows!' you might say, especially since I already have a handful of pillows. 

Nonsense. 

Don't you love how lush and inviting a seating area or bed full of pillows looks? Well I know I do. 

pin

pin

pin

I've got a lot of seating both inside and out on the patios that can use some pillow-licious comfort:

outdoor

1 couch, 1 rocking chair, 2 side chairs

indoor

1 couch, 1 chair & a-half, 3 comfy chairs, 1 settee, and 1 big queen bed.

So comfortable and REM-inducing, I miss it when I don't sleep there.
It could use some flair to make it as pretty as it is comfy.

With all the available spots, I'm sure the new pillows will quickly find happy homes.

I'm happy that the Bf's didn't/couldn't turn around to see me loading 2 big BB&B bags o' pillows into the trunk. My excuse for the delay was long lines.....sorry hun; pillows' out of the bag now. (bazinga)

;)


-Lindsay

Porch Couch. Say it 5 times fast

There are two balconies off the back of my unit (for some reason that sounds like the beginning of a song or a pickup line to me, but anyway) facing the lake. The view is lovely, they are exceedingly private and were two of the many reasons I bought this place. I have been working to turn them into usable, comfortable spaces for myself, the  fur-balls, and guests.

Below are some MLS pictures of the space pre-me.

dining room/living room balcony

Master bedroom balcony

the view, with the lake just visible through the full trees

My general goals for this year with the living area balcony have been:
          - keep kamikaze cats from launching off in pursuit of birds
          - seating to accommodate several people comfortably
          - have a flexible space which can accommodate open air projects (ex. furniture refinishing)
          - plant something pretty
          - plant something to eat
          - make an interesting, but not view-obscuring plant stand
          - get rid of nasty indoor, but used outdoor, carpet
          - something to lounge/take a nap on
          - somewhere to set for food and drink
          - make the most of the wall space with thoughtful decoration
          - provide some sort of lighting until electricity can be brought out

I've made progress on every point, and have more goals for next year, but in this post would like to tell you a little bit about my friend: the porch couch.

Porch couch lived many months or years (I'll never know for sure, but that's ok, it doesn't pain me) unloved and undervalued, as boring and stained seating somewhere in the Fairfax County government system. I found him through an amazing adoption website for abandoned institutional items. Public Surplus. I feel bad for all the cast off little things, so I adopt (probably too) frequently. I'm so grateful that P.S. could bring porch couch and I together for the low low adoption fee of $27.58. As my dad pointed out, I couldn't even buy the wood to build it for that price.

poor little guy, just look at that unfinished oak

I got him home via 495, up the 8 stairs to the door, through the house, and standing up vertically in a corner of the porch; thanks to the muscle power of unwitting assistants.

Scene: Mom and Dad stop by after dinner to retrieve their truck I'd borrowed for the day to pickup the couch.
Dad [seeing couch still in back of truck]: oh wow. That's a big couch! You can pick that up by yourself to get it inside?
Me [puppy dog eyes and big smile]: oh no! I thought so (really I did, it got loaded into the back so easily. I must have glossed over the loading dock and burly man-helper part), but now I think I really need your help....
Mom [laughing]: It's getting dark. I'll carry the cushions. good luck.

I 'knew' the couch would fit in its intended sheltered nook in the porch, but I definitely wondered if my measurements or PublicSurplus' were off as I wrangled the thing from standing on end to resting on it's legs, because lemme tell you, that sucker has about an inch of clearance on each side when in place. Its fantastic, but I'm glad my knee didn't sustain (yet another) injury, as I thought it might while tweaking it sideways and nearly falling into position.
I wanted a rich dark tone for the wood, and tested out a couple different stains that I already had. A combination of Jacobean and Ebony looked to fit the bill. After removing a surprising amount of tape from the frame, I painted the stain mixture on, and porch couch looked like this:

fake-tan couch

Eeehhhh, not so rich. A little blotchy n orange. Perhaps it originally hails from the shore? (if you catch my [long shore] drift).
Oh my word. Sorry for that groan you just let out.
Anyway, 2 more coats later and a handful of colorful words directed at all the damn nooks and crannies in the frame, it looked great.

As for the cushions - those covers got stripped off and immediately thrown in the wash. Beyond the gross thought that they had been sat on by countless people who had not washed their hands before that tax lien hearing and nervously fiddled with a cushion seam, or crop dusted their ex while waiting for divorce court; they were stained and nasty looking. The covers came out of the wash spotless and bright, but the boring blue, kinda corduroy fabric was not comfortable to sit on and didn't have the look I was going for.
Recycling to the rescue! In my sizable 'collection' (ie. backlog/horde) of fabric, I'd squirreled away the old shower curtains from my last apartment and Al's last bathroom update. These seemed like everything I could want to upholster the cushions: free, bright, related patterns, complimentary colors found in nature, free, water friendly, visually interesting, available, not a grain sack like everyone on pinterest, and free.
I laid out the two shower curtains with an additional outdoor fabric from 'the collection' to make sure they would actually look good in real life and not just my head, and to estimate if I had enough fabric by using the old covers as a template.

This is Sprout. She wants to help.
She's huge (that's the cover for a back cushion she's pretty much covering),
enjoys bird watching, being brushed, and sounding like a squeaky toy.

This helped me figure out that I'd have to do all the top cushions in one shower curtain, and all the bottoms in the other. With the blue striped fabric filling out gaps, I had just enough yardage needed to get them all covered. The green seemed to be the slightly more durable and less stain-able fabric, so to the bottom cushions it went.
To help the manufacturing process go a bit more smoothly, I made patterns out of some more fabric from 'the collection' for which I had no plans.

This is Navy. She does not want to help.
She wants to say something. She's gonna put it out there;
if you like it, you can take it, if you don't, send it right back.
She wants to be on you.
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait..........she......she wants to be on you.

The pattern making phase was slowed down by the puddle of cute that plopped on the cushion immediately when it was placed on the floor, and would not move. But, if these are the times that try crafters' souls: I'm a-ok with that.
Anyway...
I made my cuts so that all the different fabrics would make one large rectangle when sewed together. I did make some mistakes because it was a Friday night when the bf was out of town and honestly, I was distracted by TLC and my glass of wine. But such is life, and you're only gonna see one half of the cushion when its in place anyway, so bottoms up and move along. I completed the assembly of each rectangle with double-stitched seams to keep the fabric from running or tearing under the strain of many *ahem* users, and did a contrast stitch at the joining of each piece to keep the seam lying flat, for additional durability, and cuz its darn purdy. Al especially appreciates a good contrast stitch, and as he is not a big fan of his old shower curtain (not of me using it, just the curtain in general), so I thought this touch would give him something to particularly like about the upholstery. With my rectangles ready to go, I had another glass of wine and made single-piece-style envelope cushion covers. Most tutorials show how to do an envelope cover with 3 pieces, but that's 2 pieces too complicated for me. There's a good single piece tutorial here.
I proceeded to wrestle the covers onto the cushions - seriously; with stiff cushions, the fabric overlap, and tightly fitted covers, you're working for it. It was then I realized the curtains were open and my neighbors would probably no longer talk to me for fear I'd murder them or their furniture. More room on the couch for me I suppose.
Originally I was going to make four more seams on each cushion to make proper boxed corners since the cushions' foam is shaped like a block.

But, it was late and 24 more double-stitched seams were just not going to happen. So, I tucked in the corners (this lady has good pictures of it - thank you google for helping me find illustrations after the fact), put the cushions on the wooden frame, and made a quick lumbar pillow to make it look like a real boy outdoor couch.

Voila! I give you Porch Couch.

short, dark, and sturdy. he's what dreams are made of.

-Lindsay