Printable View
I'm refurbishing a sitting room at the moment and trying to decide if it's best to go for leather sofa and armchairs or washable fabric ones.
I've never had leather furniture before - are there special considerations or treatments needed?
Which wears better?
Thank you!
Leather will generally outlast fabric at a rate of 4 to 1. So if a fabric unit needs re-upholstery in ten years, the leather will be good to forty years. Leather will cost more at the outset, but over the lifespan of the piece it more economical for years of useful life.
I have found this to be true for most applications, provided you do not place the leather pieces in direct sunlight and follow the cleaning/conditioning protocols every 6 months.
What do you say about leatherette? It will also be better than regular upholstery like leather or is it better to choose washable fabric?
"leatherette" should be thought of as buying plastic (or a low grade vinyl, which is also a form of plastic). It has no longevity and will deteriorate rather quickly. This is also known as Bonded Leather or BiCast, and here's what it is....
I was at the Hancock and Moore factory in Hickory NC on Monday, and here's the bins of the leather scraps they sell to a recovery company by the pound. These bins are then shipped in bulk to China:
Attachment 12067
Larger pieces will be used to make belts and things like wallets or even key fobs, smaller pieces or those that are full of imperfections are ground up into particles, then are made into a paste-type slurry and applied onto sheets of polypropylene. That's your leatherette product. If you think of real top grain leather as being a prime cut of New York Strip steak, this this is the cheap hotdog version full of the pieces of meat not usable for anything else. In short order the material usually begins stripping, where you will literally see the topcoat peeling off. It will be in the landfill in short order.
Why not buy real leather? You will get 8x the lifespan of leatherette and 4x the lifespan of cloth. It good for your budget, because you get more lifespan for your dollars spent, and its good for the environment because we're not putting crappy sofas in our landfills every five to seven years, whose foam and chemicals in the plywood leech into the ground for years to come. A good leather sofa will last 30 years or more, depending on if you take care of it and the like.
Yes, I would buy a cloth covered sofa over any bonded or bicast product.
Absolutely agree with the comment above. Any thing made of "leatherette", whether it be a sofa or sneakers, will wear out faster than from fabric and more so than a product made from real leather. Many people want to save money when buying such products, but as a result they have to overpay. I often work at night sitting on my imitation leather sofa. In the morning I have to remove the pieces of upholstery from the floor, which simply fall away from the sofa in large quantities. With a leather chair this would not have happened.