Customized Leathercraft Sofa : Dust Mites

[drcollie]

I have a customer who is concerned about the possibility of dust mites, and wanted her new Leathercraft Sofa made with barriers. We modified this Leathercraft model # 2380-88 in Milan Lipstick leather as follows to accommodate her requests:

* All cushion cores are completely covered in leather. Normally there is a fabric 'vent panel' on the bottom of every leather seat cushion from every maker than allows the air to escape when the cushion is sat upon. The vent panel is made of fabric which allows and entry point for dust mites, I'm told. However leather-on-leather slips, so to try to keep the cushions in place and still reversible (at customer's request) elastic retention straps were sewn into the piece to hold the cushion in place. Because a fully leather encased seat cushion does not allow air to escape, over time it will blow out the seams on the cushion. To prevent that, brass venting grommets were installed in the cushion back edge and are not visible when the cushions are in the sofa.

* An all-leather deck panel was installed. This is the area under the cushions and replaces the fabric deck panel normally used. Dust mites cannot get through leather.

I do not advocate making these particular mods myself, but we aim to try to give the customer what they want. Better makers such as Leathercraft will work with us on these mods as well, though the customer does pay custom charges on pieces such as this.