A few years ago I bought a grey sofa bed from Gumtree, it was intended for the spare room where it did live for about a year, but it was way too big for the space (I kind of knew this at the time of buying it, but it was way too good a deal to pass up!)
Eventually, the sofa ended up in the living room. It was supposed to only be there temporarily because the living room was too sparse on seating β however the longer it stayed there, the more I liked it. The shape was lovely but as I started to revamp the cold, grey living room, it started to look out of place very quickly.
Dreaming of a brown leather sofa to suit my new warm living room vides, I was about re-list the sofa on Gumtree and subject myself to spending a few hundred pounds on buying something new. Then I saw DIY Danie do the unthinkable… paint an armchair with chalk paint! WHAT?!
And soon after, my mind was blown even further when Drew from Lone Fox took it a step further and painted an armchair using generic wall paint. Yep, it was time to get myself to the paint aisle of B&Q!
Read on for my painting process, what type of paint and the colours I used, and for the secret ingredient that made this whole project possible!
Before anything else, I gave the sofa a good vacuum to make sure there wasn’t any dust or debris (biscuit crumbs, most likely!) on the surface.
Then I mixed the paint colours together for the base layer, and added in the secret inredient! You can find details of the paint colours and mixing ratios at the end of this post.
I also mixed some of the secret ingredient with water in a spray bottle… Can you guess what the ingredient is yet? π
In order to allow the paint mixture to spread easily and evenly I sprayed the solution all over the sofa, mainly focusing on the area I was going to start with.
At this point, there was really nothing more to do but get stuck in with a paint brush! The paint mixture is quite thick so I used the spray solution A LOT as I went, this helped to spread it around.
I worked in sections, soaking the sofa with the spray solution and painting as I went.
To make the sofa look more like faux leather, I added shading with a mid-brown (again, details of the colours I used are at the end of this post!)
I started off using a paintbrush but soon found that I got a better finish by using a sponge. The sponge was giving a more blotchy-looking finish which played into the worn look I was going for.
After the mid-brown shading I moved onto a dark brown. I painted in all the creases with this and blotted it out with the sponge.
When you’ve finished painting the sofa, it’ll probably take a few days to dry because of the spray solution. And that’s it, you just DIY’d yourself a whole new sofa!
When it’s dry and if you wanted to, there’s the option to protect the paint by using a finish on it.Β I’ve heard that furniture wax works pretty well for this and it would probably give even more of a faux leather look and feel. I didn’t do this but I’d like to do a second coat of paint on mine at some point to give it a thicker leathery feel, so when I do, I’ll finish with a wax!
You’re probably wondering whether the paint cracks or feels crispy β it doesn’t at all! The fabric is definitely stiffer but I’m finding that it’s loosening up over time and honestly, I think that just adds to the worn, faux leather look!
Paint Colours and Secret Ingredient
I used silk emulsion by Valspar:
- For the light brown that I used all over the sofa as a base β Cinnamon Mocha and Cinnamon Scone mixed in equal parts
- Mid brown used for shading large areas β Riding Boots
- Dark brown for shading creases β Cocoa Loco
The secret ingredient:
- Fabric softener! I used Comfort (the blue one), I’m pretty sure any fabric softener would work though. Don’t ask me to explain science but the softener somehow makes the paint flexible and almost rubbery, this is why it works so well for this project!
The ‘recipe’
- Equal parts paint to fabric conditioner. It’s that simple!
Note: I advise doing a test patch first as brands and types of fabric may produce varying results.