Leather Furniture Guide: Top Grain to Bonded Leather

Knowing What to Ask For

First and foremost, shopping for quality and value in home furnishings is about knowing exactly what you are paying for. With such a wide range of retail price points for living room furniture, it’s important to see past the commissioned salesman's jargon to know what you are getting for your dollar. Nowadays, cheaper manufacturers have found savvy ways to throw the word ‘leather’ around while meaning something completely different. The best course of action is to find a furniture store near you and always to ask a salesperson directly about the construction, fabric, leather, and warranty. Before you buy, make sure you're getting the straight talk you deserve.

What Is Bonded Leather?

"Bonded leather" is a cheaper manufacturer’s first line of attack in selling you the look and feel of leather for a “great deal.” Unfortunately, bonded leather is hardly leather at all—by definition, it has to be only 17% leather. So leather is to bonded leather what chicken is to chicken McNuggets (or pressboard to wood, or dryer lint to fabric): In other words, it's processed beyond recognition.

When a leather cowhide is taken into manufacturing, cookie-cutter-like shapes are cut out of the hide to make panels that will eventually make the seat cushions, backs, arms, and sides of quality leather furniture. When you are cutting cookies, there will always be scraps outside the cuts of these panels that are too small to use whole. This is where bonded leather begins. These scraps are ground up in a machine into even smaller pieces that are laid out in a long, thin layer and then adhered together with a thicker layer of polyurethane (plastic).

While bonded leather, being merely a "leather product," prices out (foot for foot) similar to a fabric—and in the sense may be more economical—it is, unfortunately, used all to often in misleading customers, as retailers may try to pass it off as the real thing in order to inflate the perceived value of their product.

In reality, a person sitting on bonded leather is not sitting on leather at all, only plastic. And unlike real top-grain leather, the ground-up hide and plastic will never acclimate to your body temperature or get better with age.

What Is Bicast Leather?

Bicast leather (also known as bi-cast, bycast, or PU leather) is what most people consider the next step up in quality.

Before a hide is put into production, it is cut horizontally into layers. These layers consist of the top grain (the top layer that maintains the actual surface of the cow's hide where the pores and hair follicles used to be) and then every split below that.

Bicast leather is a layer of split which was too thin or flawed for normal use and that, like bonded leather, is completely sealed on top with a layer of polyurethane. Like bonded leather, no actual point of contact is possible between the natural leather and your skin and, therefore, bicast doesn’t demonstrate any of the same wear or comfort attributes of top-grain.

That being said, bicast can still serve as an economical alternative for people wanting the look of leather without the price. Another benefit might be that bicast and bonded leather wipe up easily (since they have plastic surfaces) and you won’t run into many of the food/drink stain issues you may experience with upholstered furniture. . . continue reading!

Oconomowoc’s Fibrenew Handles Leather, Plastic and Vinyl Restoration and Repair

 

OCONOMOWOC — Entrepreneur Keith Stewart and his wife, Laurie, are fading and ripped upholsteries’ worst enemies.

The Stewarts recently became the new owners of Oconomowoc’s Fibrenew, an upholstery repair and restoration service. Fibrenew repairs, re-dyes, restores and cleans leather, plastic, vinyl and fabric. Basically, if there’s faded or ripped fabric, Keith Stewart will do everything he can to bring it back to life.

Stewart works with furniture, cars, boats and even planes. There was even a time he had to reupholster 61 chairs for a Cousins Subs that was reopening. He had a little bit of help from Laurie Stewart and his father-inlaw on that one.

Keith Stewart became an entrepreneur after spending his entire post-college life in the metal industry, where he commercially heat-treated metal.

 A leather chair that was ruined by a dog

 The same chair after restoration

He enjoyed his time doing it, but after several years of doing it he realized there isn’t a lot of change or innovation in the field.

“We used to joke that heat treating is the second oldest profession,” Stewart said. “It goes back to the Middle Ages if not earlier. There isn’t anything going on and frankly, it was just boring. It was more interesting to try and do something new.”

So he tried something new. With the help of a franchise coach, Stewart spent a year researching businesses he wanted to be a part of. The business coach found Fibrenew and presented it to Stewart.

Along with Laurie, Keith Stewart spent time talking to the local development person in Hartford about the company. He spent a day shadowing a franchisee in Chicago and when he decided the business was right for him, he approached the former owner, who was looking to retire... read more!

An Adventure Every Day: Fibrenew Tampa Franchisee is Living His Dream

Sam Torres had high hopes for his family’s financial future, despite being massively underemployed during an economic recession of 2008. He knew he was smart. He knew he was a hard worker. He knew his strength was connecting with people and solving their problems. So when he and his wife Penny came across the opportunity to own a Fibrenew franchise, they pounced.

Opening Fibrenew Tampa was the best decision the couple has made. Even through the struggling economy they worked diligently at forming a customer foundation that has grown steadily through every economic high and low. The franchise has not only provided Torres with a job for the past nine years, but has exceeded their financial goals, allowing the family a relaxed, comfortable lifestyle. “My wife said I am never allowed to give the business up!” Torres laughs.

Being a Fibrenew franchisee suits Torres well. “What I do for a living is not ordinary. It’s like an adventure every day,” he grins. His daily adventures include appointments with clients from a variety of industries: from moving companies and furniture stores to warranty companies and marinas. Fibrenew Tampa has been so accomplished with its performance Torres recently added Tesla to his client list. The secret to his success? “People skills,” he says. “If people like you, it makes them more comfortable.”

The majority of Torres’ projects are leather, plastic and vinyl repairs on furniture. But every once in a while he gets a special request. “Sometimes it’s about things that have memory, and I get to be part of that memory,” he says. A woman approached Fibrenew Tampa with the request for a restoration to her grandfather’s old, beaten up leather satchel. It involved a thorough cleaning, a leather re-dye and the construction of a new liner along the inside bottom. “She was thrilled,” Torres recalls. “It was a total transformation.” read more!