Painting Leather with Chalk Paint

Only crazy people do crazy things a week before Christmas right? Painting leather? Sure. Why not!

We decided to paint our kitchen you can read about that here and while we were at it, I decided to paint the leather bench we had in the kitchen too. Right before Christmas. Crazy right?

(no, I didn’t use that big bucket of paint, that was what hubby was using to paint the walls – you know, at the same time I was painting in the middle of the kitchen,  I used Fat Paint chalk style paint)

I’m slowly (VERY) slowly painting our main floor, when you have 2 businesses and paint for a living, sometimes always, your house is the last to get done.

I used to love this little leather storage bench. We use it to pull up to the table when we have big gatherings (a lot) and our dogs love to sit on it in the sun by the window. But its black, and not what I wanted in the light filled white farmhouse kitchen. So it was going or it was going to get painted. You know how I roll. So I painted it.

I honestly put zero thought into this, hubby was up on a ladder painting the wall and I was moving the bench for him, and, well the thought just hit. The only light paint I had in the house was Fat Paint in Parchment ( because I didn’t want to drive ALL THE WAY to the shop – you know, its 2 mins away, who has time for that?) I love this colour, glad it was the one we had at home, I’m really happy with how it turned out.

I cleaned the bench very thoroughly  wiped it quickly with a damp cloth and just started painting. Here is how you SHOULD prep a piece. One coat of Fat Paint took me all of 5 mins. It wasn’t pretty after 1 coat but painting rarely is. I put the second coat on and then used Miss Mustard Seed’s Furniture Wax to top coat.

After first coat – pretty isn’t it? ha ha

I have had a HUGE number of requests for information about this project. Some stunned that I painted leather and a whole myriad of questions. So here goes:

YES, it is soft and pliable. It is not hard and does give. I actually loved painting leather.

Update

YES, it is holding up to the dog jumping up on it! So far, no issues, but I’m sure it will scratch over time.

YES, I really did paint my leather bench!

YES, I am crazy thank you for asking!

I REALLY want to paint the dark and heavy black leather Parsons chairs in my kitchen too, but I am changing them out soon (update – I didn’t paint those chairs but did paint these ones)  so have refrained from painting them. Too many other pieces to paint.

WARNING ** I would never ever paint a full leather couch set. If it was just for show maybe, but I do not believe it would hold up to everyday use of kids and pets jumping on and off. Also, it would depend on the leather/base. We have painted seat chairs, benches, vinyl stool tops etc but I always tell people a full couch could be done, but its not something I would tackle honestly. Always TEST.

What do you think? Painting leather? Am I crazy?

Do you have a piece you would paint?

********Update May 2017 ******* SEE how I updated this again with a GRAFITTI look HERE

Cheers,

Wendy

ps…everyone is also asking about that sweet pillow, its from my friend Lucy at Craftberry Bush, you can order it here.  (affiliate link) She is super talented, you can order all her beautiful things through the link. I may or may not have several of her pillows, prints and iPhone covers in my house. I’ll never tell. Oh..and if you are in Canada, there are no surprises with duty etc, I order all the time.