As I mentioned here, our beautiful leather Chesterfield sofa that spurred the creation of this blog has begun to peel horribly in the last few months. At some point in time, I’m sure we’ll replace it, but for now, the budget says no, and we both really do love the look of it, so after some research, I’ve learned how to repair a leather sofa.

When we purchased what the manufacturer said was a 100% top grain leather sofa, we never expected to have issues with it just 4.5 years later. Concerned that the peeling meant the sofa was actually bonded leather, I emailed the owner of Odds and Ends Furniture (where we purchased it), and Nancy was SOOO helpful.

She explained that there are a few different dyeing methods for top grain leather, and that ours most likely was dyed using a pigment technique, which creates more of a painted on color and finish, as opposed to the dye going through the entire hide in a drum dyed aniline or semi-aniline leather. That seemed completely consistent with the type of peeling our sofa showed.

Nancy also mentioned that peeling can occur on a pigment dyed top grain leather sofa if the leather has not been conditioned regularly, especially in a more arid environment. Oops. Guilty. You’re supposed to condition leather?! Also, exposure to UV rays is a leather murderer. Oops again. Our sofa sits directly in front of a large window in the living room, and because I love the natural light so much, I never close the curtains. I mean ever. So after years of abuse and mistreatment, no wonder I had to hunt for a way to repair a leather sofa!

Disclaimer: This is NOT a sponsored post. This is my experience with a product I feel may help people repair a leather sofa, and I wanted to share. There may be other cheaper products out there that do the same thing; this is just my personal experience. 

After a lot of research on how to repair peeling leather furniture, I stumbled across a company called Magic Mender. After watching the “how to” video and seeing how easy it was to use, I ordered the mini leather repair kit in what I thought would be the best color match, #810 Cordovan Brown. The kit price was $29.95, and the total cost after shipping and handling was $37.05, a small price to pay to potentially save a large piece of furniture, especially compared to replacement or even professional leather repair.

The color ended up being too light, so I ordered some additional samples of #928 Dark Brown, which are the three smaller bottles pictured. The samples cost $5.99, with an additional $3.00 in shipping and handling. My only complaint with Magic Mender is that it’d be nice to have a couple of color options in the kit in order get the best initial color match. I wasn’t surprised by this though, as many reviews on the website say the same thing. 

The kit contains everything you need to repair torn, scratched, peeling, or discolored leather. As our damage was more surface level, the only parts I needed were the cleaning wipes, repair compound with spatula, sponge applicator, and color flex (the pigment).

I followed Magic Mender’s instructions to repair a leather sofa very carefully, so I will just give a brief overview with pictures instead of going heavily into detail.

First, I cleaned the leather with one of the alcohol wipes included in the leather repair kit. Next was to put the repair compound on the peeling places. I was a bit nervous to take this step, because once you smear a white sticky compound all over your dark brown leather furniture, there’s no going back. However, the sofa already looked embarrassingly awful, and with hope that I could improve the appearance, I dove in.

I applied a thin layer to the worst peeling spots, as well as some of the less noticeably damaged areas. When the instructions say to use a thin layer, use a thin layer. The only results I’m unhappy with are the spots where I got a bit careless and applied the compound too thickly.

The instructions say to apply the compound multiple times, but I had only surface leather damage, so only applied two layers. Maybe I did it incorrectly, but I’m fairly pleased with the results, so it all worked out ok!

Next came the first layer of color.

It still looked pretty terrible, but as something of an optimist, I was still hopeful that I’d chosen a good product to repair a leather sofa.

After two coats, I started to see a little bit of improvement…

When I applied the first coat, I had a hunch that the brown was too light, but that wasn’t confirmed for sure until after applying two coats. I began taking the lighter color and blending it in blotches on the undamaged areas of the sofa as well to make the color difference less noticeable.

After the second coat was completely dry, I jumped online and ordered the samples of the darker color before applying a third coat of the lighter color. At this point I stopped taking pictures, as I was getting the rest of my house ready for two events in our home and time was of the essence.

The final pictures are after three coats of the lighter color and one coat of the darker color, as well as switching the cushions from one side of the sofa to the other. You can tell that the damaged areas are still lighter than the rest of the sofa, but I sort of like the weathered look it gives, as well as the added dimension. In the future, I’ll probably put an additional layer of the darker color on the damaged areas, and blend some more of the lighter color back onto the darker parts of the sofa.

All in all, I’m excited about how Magic Mender breathed new life into our worn sofa, and it’s obviously a huge improvement over before! I’m excited to see how well the repairs hold up, and I’ll update this post in a few months once I see how it wears!

With the pillows and throw in place, the repairs are hardly noticeable!

Magic Mender can be used to repair a leather sofa, shoes, handbags, automobile leather… The options are endless! Do you think you would try it, or go straight to a new sofa?