Painting Thrifted Furniture To Look Like Leather?! *It Actually Works!*

A huge thanks to SimpliSafe for sponsoring today's video. Hi everybody, welcome back to my channel. Today, we are gonna be practicing and trying out and testing a new technique that I've actually known about for quite a while now. This is going to be painting furniture to turn it into basically a faux leather, which I think is such a crazy idea. I remember Danny from DIY Danny posting a video on this, probably about a year ago, I would say. I commented on the video. I was like, this is the most craziest thing I've ever seen. I didn't even know this was possible. And ever since that video came out, it has been in my head as something I've wanted to try out. Now, of course, I had to do a little bit more research. So I looked up a couple other tutorials on YouTube, and I came across this girl by the name of Emma. I will link her tutorial below for you guys. But the thing I loved about her tutorial was is that she actually used just your traditional household latex paint that you would use for a wall. She actually mixed it with fabric softener, which is so interesting. And I'm gonna try out that technique because Danny actually used a special brand of paint, which I would have to order online, and it's quite a bit more expensive. So I figured I'd test out the more affordable route first for you guys, and we can see how that goes. So our first task today is to just go out and locate a chair. I don't exactly know what kind of chair I'm looking for, but let's go out to the thrift stores. I'm gonna head to one close by first. It's the Habitat for Humanity thrift store. And if they don't have anything there, because sometimes it's a hit or miss, I'm gonna head to one in downtown that has quite a bit of furniture. So let's head out. All right, guys. We are heading out to the thrift stores. But of course, first, we gotta turn on our SimpliSafe. Sorry, the lighting is so bad down here. Today's video is sponsored by SimpliSafe, which is so exciting. I love my SimpliSafe. You guys all know that. It is a no-brainer product when it comes to home security systems. I'm gonna go ahead and arm mine. I have to exit now. Bye, guys. I'll see you in the car. Nine months ago, I opened my door to an incredible box sent over by SimpliSafe. They just wanted me to try out their home security system. And you guys, I loved it so much that over the past year, we have been partnering together a couple of times to share with you guys their incredible home security system. If you have never heard of SimpliSafe, it is an easy-to-use, customizable, and extremely modernized home security system that is free of contracts or hidden costs. And not to mention, they actually just upgraded their system, and SimpliSafe devices are now half the size as before, and they reach nearly double the range with five times faster speed. 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Wherever it is, you just feel secure when you have your SimpliSafe set up. So if you guys like to get your very own, use my link on the screen, which is simplisafe.com slash loanfox I'm in the little chair area, or one of many chair areas, and they have these two chairs right here. I actually like this one quite a bit too, but it seems like it needs to be honestly reupholstered because it's just, like, very flimsy. But they have these two, which are actually really cute. I like the shape of it, and it also is on casters as well, which I think adds to the vibe. This needs to be fully redone. Like, I would probably repaint these something a little bit different. This chair is $45. I'm gonna keep looking around, but this is definitely an option. There's two of them, but I would just probably grab one. The fabric is super, super smooth, so it's really, really a perfect option to try this out. So I think this is gonna be the one I'm going for. It's $45, which is a little pricey, I would say, but honestly not too bad. So I'm gonna go ahead and pick this up. Marie's pushing me through the thrift store. We're going! Yay! Yippee! She's all packed up and ready to go. All right, you guys. I am home from Lowe's. I wanted to share with you guys what I ended up getting. Sorry about the poor lighting here. I'll try to make this really quick just to go over our supplies, tools, and materials. The first thing I got, of course, was the paint. Now, Emma ended up using all just sample sizes of paint, so I went ahead and got the samples as well. Way cheaper than having to get the quart. So it's kind of going from light to dark there, and I'll make sure to pop up the color swatches for you guys too. I also ended up picking up some fabric softener, which they have this at Lowe's as well. Not sure if you guys knew, but I didn't. They have fabric softener there, so I got that. Here is a spray bottle. I got this as well. We're gonna need that for a process. And last but not least, a whole bunch of brushes. So I ended up getting these ones here, which were the really affordable brushes. They're just these two-inch, like, simple brushes. You can probably get these at the dollar store as well. And then I also got a couple of these brushes here, which I'm not sure the actual name of these. They're the more denser, kind of like packer brush style, a bit more dense. But I thought this would be nice to be able to maybe add some more of a distressed texture to the leather. So I got quite a few of these as well just to play around with. But let me go ahead and actually start working on the swatches, which I'll share with you guys what those are, because I want those to dry overnight so we can see how they look in the morning. Now, I decided to go ahead and create my very own swatches just because I know that the paint that she used was a different brand, and I had no idea if the paint brand could totally change up the mixture and just kind of create a different consistency. So I went ahead, I got three pieces of canvas, and I mixed out different proportions of paint and fabric softener together. So I did a half-and-half mixture where it's half paint, half fabric softener. I did one with two-thirds paint, and I also did one with three-quarters paint. So this first one here is a half-and-half mixture with equal parts of paint and fabric softener. As you can see, it's pretty thick in consistency. And I'm gonna paint that onto my canvas material. My next one here has two spoons of paint and one spoon of fabric softener, which is actually the mixture that Emma ended up using. And then I also went ahead and did a three-quarter mixture, which I kind of figured this was out of the books anyways, but I wanted to create it just to test it out. Good morning, you guys. I just woke up. I ran into the studio room because I was like, I need to check on these swatches. So this is kind of like my first look at these swatches. Okay, this is actually super interesting. Now, this is, of course, just with one coat. So do keep in mind, if you had a coarser fabric, it would probably get a little bit less coarse as you added more coats to it. But the three-quarter paint, this is 1,000% the roughest finish for sure. Now, I know that Emma ended up using the two-thirds, but I'm kind of torn between either of these. And something else, you guys, I noticed as well is the paint did not dry down, which I thought was weird. I literally left it here just because I ran out the door last night after filming these swatches to go to a dinner. But as you can see, the paint did not dry down at all in any of these. It's so smooth. Let's do like a little scratch test and see if anything comes off. Okay, there's literally nothing on my nail at all. And it did kind of mar the surface. But honestly, if you were to do that with real leather, it would do the same exact thing. So I think I'm going to work on the half-and-half mixture. It is time to start the process. I have moved the chair from my car into the living room. I put this drop cloth underneath. I normally hate these plastic drop cloths, but I had it from a paint kit, so I just decided to use it as opposed to go out and getting another fabric one. My other fabric one got so much paint on it, I had to throw it out. So let's create some of the paint. I'm going to do a couple of different colors. As you guys saw earlier, I opted for the half-and-half mixture. I wanted to share with you the consistency change. So this is the paint just right out of the can. Now this is mixed up with the fabric softener. You can see how much it truly thickens it up, which is so strange because they're both very runny consistencies. So some form of reaction definitely has to occur in there. This is all three shades mixed up. And then we're also going to create a little spray bottle with equal parts of water and fabric softener. This is just going to kind of be a mixing medium when we're painting our chair. I grabbed a little bit of FrogTape because I'm going to go in now and actually tape off the legs. That way, we could start painting the chair base and allow it to dry because it's going to need a couple of coats. So the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to grab our little mixture of the fabric softener and the water. And I'm just going to spritz this a little bit. And we're going to start in with our paint. It is so thick, which is so strange. But let's, I guess, apply it. Oh, that is— Oh my gosh, that's— Guys, look how smooth this is. It looks like I'm literally applying this onto paper. Wait, what the heck? Emma did say that the smoother fabric that you had, the better that the coat would go on. And this is actually spreading really nice as well. So this first little layer here literally took me one minute to apply, and it is pretty smooth. I'm going to go in with my second color here, which is a little bit darker, of course. And I'm going to just kind of start seeing if I can blend a little bit of this in to the side. So I'm just going to stipple it around to start, just to kind of get it moving. I'm going to blend this kind of like you're just, you know, painting a picture, adding shadows where it should be darker, which is more so in these creases. And then the highlighted sections are going to be the more open sections. So more like the back here and then the middle of the chair. Here I am going in with the darkest shade of paint. Now, something I can tell you guys and give you like a little idea of what this feels like when you're painting is it almost feels like an oil paint, where the paint really stays wet on the surface. It allows you to blend very easily, allows you to go back and make corrections if you need to. It doesn't dry down very quick like an acrylic. So all around, I feel like the process is really forgiving. You can go back and add different shades if you need to. You can lighten up sections, darken up sections. When painting my chair, I also kind of broke it up into sections. So I started off with the seat first, and I did that section first. Then I'm doing the seat back. And then I'm going to be doing the backside of the chair right after that. And I just found this makes it the easiest to blend. It lets the paint sit on the surface. It stays wettest the longest. And overall, I just found it to be so much easier. I could definitely see if you were to go in with your lightest color first and paint the entire chair. Maybe by the time you reach the back, it could be dried down just a little bit. Again, it does take quite a while to dry. But working in smaller sections like this just overall made it a little bit easier. I went ahead, I applied the first coat of paint. Now, I'm going to flip the camera around and share with you guys what it is looking like at the moment and my takeaways so far of the process. You cannot tell me this does not look like leather, you guys. This is crazy so far. It's been such a fun process actually because it went on so smoothly. Now, a couple of things to mention. You can still see the pattern through, of course. The pattern is still poking through a little bit. That's just because this is the first coat. Now, originally on my first coat, I was just going to do one coat of the lightest shade and then kind of go in with the second and third and then do like kind of, you know, some shadows here and there. But I actually opted to go in and while it was still wet on my first coat, I just did a little bit of shading around the seat here. I did it around the back as well with some of our darker shades and a couple of takeaways for you. So, as you can see, the first coat didn't cover the pattern fully, which is no worry. And the second thing is that it is still extremely wet. Even in the first section I painted right here, it's still very wet. I'm assuming that it's just going to sit on top of the surface until it dries. But tomorrow, we're going to do our second coat. We're going to deepen up all of the areas. We're also going to alter the legs a little bit and keep on working with this leather process. Hi, everyone. It is the next morning and I allowed the chair to dry overnight. Now, for multiple hours, I was kind of checking on it every couple of hours. By about the third or fourth hour, I could tell that it started to become a little bit tacky. And then by like the sixth hour, I could tell that a majority of like the layers were dry, but some of the creases were still a little bit wet. So, this is what the chair looks like so far. The color is beautiful. I absolutely love this like warm caramel color. Something that I did notice though, is that the color went on a lot more opaque. But as you can see, it almost looks suede-y, but that is because the pattern is actually showing through. It kind of got a little bit more sheer and transparent in some sections. It seems like these edging areas here are super saturated and dark because I added a couple layers there. If you guys can hear that, I don't know if that helps you with an idea of what it feels like, but it does not feel crunchy at all. It is really, really soft. It's almost like we dyed it in a sense. And of course, there's zero transfer on the hands, which is great. So, I'm going to go through. We're going to apply our second coat today. I'm hoping the second coat will be able to cover a majority of the remaining pattern on here. But this is looking so good so far, which I am so excited about. This is such a fun technique. We're going to apply our second coat right now. So, let's go. Actually, before we apply the second coat, I want to do a quick sit test. I just want to sit on it and see, you know, what it feels like, get my thoughts on it. Oh, I mean, it just feels like a normal chair. There's no cracking or anything on the fabric, which normally would happen with paint on fabric. It would typically crack. But I guess the latex mixed with the fabric softener kind of softens up those, that material a little bit. When going in for the second coat, the first thing I could say is you do want to lay down a generous amount of your fabric softener and water mixture. This is just going to make it so much easier to blend. I think when I did the seat here, I totally forgot to even spray it down, and it was quite a bit challenging to blend. But keep in mind, you can always spray your brush if you need to, to blend it out a little bit more or spray it directly onto the chair itself. And something else to keep in mind, you guys, is as you're working on this project, do not compare the section you're working to to a dried down section already, because the color truly does oxidize and change over the course of its drying time. So the color might look a little bit different. And I was kind of scared at first when I laid down that really light color. I was like, where did this come from? There's none of this even showing up on the chair. But do keep in mind, once it dries down, it probably will deepen in color, or in my case, it did deepen in color. And it just looks really, really pretty in the end. Already, my friends, the second coat has been fully applied. Now, what I can say about the second coat is it has made it so much more opaque. I don't know if you can tell, but the richness of the color is just so much more vibrant and bold. I went in, I added more of the dark brown shade that I had prior. I love the way this is turning out. And I'm hoping that once this dries, it covers the pattern. So I'm gonna allow this to dry overnight once again. It takes quite a while to dry fully. We're gonna allow this to dry, and I'll catch you guys in the morning, and we can see how it looks. Here's a look at the chair with two coats of paint on it. Now, I am just obsessed with how the coating is covering so far. I do feel like you could see just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of the pattern through, mainly just like the edges of the pattern. But I honestly am going to keep it. I think that it adds character to the chair. I like the different colorations here. It looks worn in and like a used piece of leather. So I actually really enjoy that. Now, the seat itself, like I just think this looks absolutely incredible. I don't know what else I would change about this. I think it looks really nice. Now, I do wanna point out a couple of sections that I did kind of like mess up on, for example. As you can see right here, I have some dark paint strokes, which I kinda wanna go in and see if I could fix those a little bit, kinda blend these edges. This right here isn't super blended as well. And then also right on the edge here, I don't know what I was thinking when I did this, but I wanna go in and kind of try to fix that as well. So I'm really happy with the coloration and the two coats really just work for this chair. So I'm gonna go in and just tweak a little bit on it. I still need to, of course, do the legs as well, but I wanna do the chair first, just so we can finish that off. So let's jump in and just, you know, kind of clean up some areas. Once the chair was fully dry, I was able to bring it back inside to remove the tape. I am so excited to share with you guys the outcome of this chair transformation. And let me reveal it to you guys in 3, 2, 1. I literally was just editing away and realized I never filmed an intro. That's a reoccurring trend here on the channel. But anyways, thank you guys so much for watching today's video and a humongous thank you for DIY Danny and Emma for inspiring me for today's video. I'm going to link both of their videos below. They are truly incredibly talented people. DIY Danny's video was the first one I saw and I totally loved how she was able to achieve that leather look. And then Emma's video came in super handy just because I didn't have the exact tools and supplies Danny had, so I was able to use a little bit more easier to find materials, such as your typical household paint, some fabric softener, and some paint brushes to achieve a really, really genuine leather look. Like, it's crazy how much it actually looks like leather. And last but not least, I wanna thank SimpliSafe again for sponsoring today's video. I'm going to link them below for you guys. If you are in the market for a home security system, SimpliSafe is your way to go. Definitely check out SimpliSafe using the link below, simplisafe.com slash loanfox. And I'm gonna go ahead and catch you guys in my next video, which is actually going to be a really fun makeover, I believe. I think the makeover is coming out first. I'm doing an outdoor makeover, you guys. I'll catch you on my next one. Do not forget to subscribe so you can see that video. And yeah, have an amazing day. Bye, everybody.