Renovation Service

L'atelier du cuir - Brittany offers the renovation of your club armchairs, club sofas or other antique leather furniture.The restoration of leather club chairs is carried out either by retaining the original leather (if possible) or by replacing the leather with a new skin patina in the old or by a colored skin. For longevity and durability, we prefer to work with cowhide leather and not with basan. Depending on their condition, we try to also keep the original nails, while the straps are replaced. The padding of the cushions is completely exchanged.Recoloring ServiceIf you have a contemporary leather lounge, it is possible to renovate, recolor or change the color. The renovation stages consist of stripping and degreasing the leather, recolouring or staining, and then waterproofing it.

Recoloring Service

If you have a contemporary leather lounge, it is possible to renovate, recolor or change the color. The renovation stages consist of stripping and degreasing the leather, recolouring or staining, and then waterproofing it.

The stages of renovation

Once you arrive at our atelier, your club chair or club sofa will be examined closely to determine which parts of the leather cover can be kept.

Then, the armchair or the sofa is first disassembled and unloaded from its seat.
Thus exposed, the carcass can be glued and degreased. Sometimes an exchange of a part of the wooden carcass is necessary (preferably beech wood). Then comes the work of reforming the armrests which consists of putting on straps, stuffing with vegetable hair, covering with burlap, then stuffing again with a layer of cotton wool.

The next steps are the seat and the backrest: Then, it is necessary to tighten the straps and springs nosag, or to replace them if necessary. Follow the vegetable horsehair padding and the jute packing set in points. At the end we finish the bottom of the club chair as well as on the seat on which will later rest the cushion, with a layer of finer jute cloth or jaconas.

Once the interior is put back to a level that will allow it a good longevity, the old coating is then rested on the packed wooden carcass. The leather is then colored with an airbrush to equalize the shades of old leather, then patinated with several layers of wax to nourish and soften the leather. Finally, decorative brass nails, preferably the old ones, are put back in place.

Old button machine to fabricate leather covered buttons. We make all the leather buttons ourselves for all our vintage furniture in leather in our leather workshop in Brittany, l'Atelier du cuir - Bretagne.

The materials

Originally, the club armchairs were made from high quality materials, ensuring their longevity: a wooden structure, canvas and jute straps, nosag iron springs (= no-sag, English : That does not collapse, in other words, wavy springs), vegetable or animal hair cushioning, cotton wool and feathers, a leather coating and a brass nail, brass nails ...

Anxious to increase the margin of profit, these noble materials were unfortunately more and more exchanged from the 1950s against materials of lower quality but less expensive, such as foam block seat and spiral spiral frames As well as a less robust padding of the armrests, which resulted in considerable loss of comfort and durability.

Some of our tools used to renovate old leather furniture in our leather workshop in Brittany, l'Atelier du cuir - Bretagne. The button machine, scissors, hammer and so forth lie on raw leather. The raw leather is colored and given a patina during the renovation process in order to replace the ancient leather when needed.
Detail of the armrest of an old vintage club armchair. The ancient leather is too damaged to be properly renovated. New leather will cover the club armchair during the renovation process in our leather workshop in Brittany, l'Atelier du cuir - Bretagne.
Detail of the armrest of a entirely renovated leather armchair. The leather is new and given the patina of the ancient leather color in our leather workshop in Brittany, l'Atelier du cuir - Bretagne. It is decorated with a band of brass nails.

In order to ensure maximum comfort and durability, while respecting as closely as possible the "core" of the original part, we renovate parts of the leather that are not too damaged and replace only Those which are irreparable, by colorless cowhide leather, then colored giving it the original patina.

For interior renovation, we work with jute straps, vegetable hair and cotton padding for armrests, and steel nosag springs, strong jute fabric, then less strong jute fabric or Jaconas (fabric) for the finishing of the seat. In order to guarantee maximum comfort, we use approximately 1.5 kg of foam flake mixture (80%) mixed with feathers (20%) for cushioning of the seat cushion, which corresponds to A volume of about 0.5 m3 in the raw state per cushion.

Finally, to keep the original appearance as much as possible, we strive to recycle old brass nails.