The a-peeling chair

We bought this lovely living room set when we moved into our first (and only) brand new home around 6 years ago.  The saleslady assured us it was genuine leather fronts with bonded leather sides & backing.  Most likely she was simply relaying what she was told.  It was very comfortable with 'saddle seating' and truly looked and felt like a quality set.  We got the reclining sofa, reclining love seat, and reclining chair as well as a faux leather king size bed and quality mattress that day.  A couple of years in, we (or maybe I, LOL) decided that there was too much furniture in the living room and so I sold the love seat.  We lived in that house for 4.5 years and when we sold it (it was in the city and we decided to move to the country to be closer to family), we sold the sofa and got a new sofa & chair . . . keeping the remaining chair from the original set.

Remember I said "genuine leather"?  Well . . . it began to crack and peel and reveal its truths.  The shedding seemed to escalate quickly once it started and left pieces of itself on anything that came in contact with it.  I FINALLY decided to do something about it yesterday.  Here is what it looked like:

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I had read on Pinterest about using a rubberized spray coating to cover and fix peeling vinyl.  I bought a can of black FlexSeal at . . . you guessed it, Kent Building Supplies!  After trying to peel off just the loose pieces and finding that too time-consuming, I then turned to using a sanding sponge like I had read on Pinterest.  That made things worse.  So, I just shook up the can of FlexSeal and sprayed on a coat, following can instructions.

First coat

It was looking promising at this stage.  I waited 20 minutes and then sprayed on a second coat.  I emptied the can during this second coat.  

Second coat

I kinda knew when I was done spraying this final coat that the end results would not be successful but I didn't go back to check it until this morning.  The partially peeled pieces were like lumps.  I tried sanding them off which loosened things and started the peeling again.  I then tried scissoring the new peels and lumps I hadn't touched yet.  I also tried using toenail clippers to get in closer.  I finally gave up and just sanded a bit more and left it.  I posted the chair on local websites to see who will take it as is.  Its life is over here but could be used at a camp with a blanket thrown over it to hide its ugliness.  Its still a comfortable, functioning chair, after all.

Do I think it was an utter fail?  No.  Had I done this a couple of months ago, I would have salvaged the chair.  The spots that were in the cracking stage, sealed over nicely with the spray.  Even small bare spots covered well.  The finish was shiny and flexible so would have done a decent job had I done it before it got so bad.  So yes.  I would recommend this fix for cracking faux leather for sure!  Even for a small tear or small missing patch, as well.

As I said, we sell this product at Kent Building Supplies.

For those who order from Amazon, click on the picture to the right.

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