Hair-on leather chairs. YOU can do it!

I love the look of hair-on leather, but this type of furniture does have its drawbacks. Here's how to avoid expensive mistakes when buying or upholstering with hair-on cowhide.

My two chairs started life covered with floral material. I carefully removed the fabric upholstery so I could use the pieces as a pattern.

The next thing I did was to decide where my hair-on material should go. Take a close look where I placed mine. Notice I DID NOT put hair-on leather in a place where it would be sat on, leaned on, or slept on. That's a big no-no. The little hairs get twisted and messy when placed in those places. They also get rubbed off, and you end up with a bare spot. If you remember nothing else, remember that point when you're redoing furniture or buying a new, finished piece.

The second thing to remember is NEVER attempt to sew hair-on leather. Unless you're a professional, you just won't have a machine capable of handling it. That is probably true about regular leather also. The black, faux-cracked leather on my chairs is really a high-quality vinyl. You have to have a pretty stout machine to handle four layers of that, too, but it's doable. I'm talking cording around the cushion here.

That doesn't mean you won't be able to use hair-on leather. It just means that these pieces will be stapled or nailed into place.

The cushion is usually a separate piece on a chair, and I always start my project by redoing it first. For me, the cushion is the hardest part. I want a zipper in it because I think zippered cushion covers give a nicer, cleaner appearance. If the cushion is not separate, the plan is a little different.

Continued tomorrow after I get back from Waco.