Re: Looking for new furniture for front room
Swatches are representations of the hide you will get, and the error a lot of folks make is thinking they are dead-on accurate samples. Cows are just like people, they have all sorts of different skin colors! So while a finished (painted) hide won't vary much because we are spraying a color coat atop the cowskin, a dipped (Aniline) dye is going to color to that individual skin and will vary more from the sample. This is why I take all those photos of pieces that come through the store, so you can see what a particular hide looks like when its made up. Yes, they will vary - and the customer who is setting themselves up for a disappointment is the one that holds onto a swatch and when her new pieces arrive expects it to match 100 %, or even 95%.
The best you can do for an accurate sample is to request a CFA (Cutting For Approval). Then you're getting an actual piece of the leather they are going to use on your order. The downside to this approach is it adds 4 weeks to your production time and you have to place the order to get the sample. And if you don't like the sample, you're back to square 1 to start over in another leather.
Other variables come into play as well. Time of day, amount of natural sunlight, what kind of lighting you have in your home in the evening, and what kind of light you looked at the samples in the store. Also, its a mistake to hover over a sample with it at the end of your arm. Samples should be placed on a chair back and step back and view it from 8 feet away.
Now the good news is MOST the time, the finished piece surpasses expectations.
When you do the torture test on samples, you'll be surprised at how many will absorb a spill, but then the stain will dissappear in 48 hours.
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
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