When I did my interior I decided to punt on redoing the seats. They were in good condition and comfy, so it seemed like a waste of money to recover them considering how expensive that is these days. So when I got the interior walls done I tried to pick a color that would fit with my existing seat color which is light beige color.
When I did the interior I went with a light brown which I thought would be a good neutral compliment to the seats.
But the contrast of this brown vs the beige seats just isn't working for me. The carpet is dark gray and I feel like the plane should go from dark dark carpet, to lighter seats, to lighter sidewalls, to lighter headliner. The beige against the brown sidewalls just isn't quite right.
Needs to be a dark brown or chocolate color to contrast properly with those sidewalls. Rather than recover the seats I decided to try to recolor them, so I bought a leather recolor kit from https://www.furnitureclinic.com
It's turned into a bigger project than I expected but it's entirely manageable. I'm able to get a professional looking output with a lot of tedious work and a little elbow grease..
Basically the process involves scrubbing the old leather with a cloth soaked in leather prep chemical which removes the leather protectant and penetrates into the old dye until it starts to come up. Then you wipe the down with alcohol cleaner and get all the old chemicals removed and expose the raw leather to soak up the new dye. Then you wipe with leather dye color of your choice and the seat soaks it up.
It takes numerous coats with time in between each coat to let it dry, and a lot of time to find all the little nooks and cranny's that you miss, but eventually you end up with a seat that is recolored and looks new. Then you spray a protectant sealer on it and you're good to go, and it's on to the next one. It's not difficult, but exceedingly tedious. I've got 2 out of 6 done so far but I think the darker chocolate brown will look much better and vibes with my vintage theme. At least that's what I'm hoping for...
