Adventures in Detailing! performs a job off the beaten path…or a ‘stained situation’. (a small attempt at some “Rocky & Bullwinkletm” title humor, for those of you old enough to remember such things.) Then again we could just call it ‘Pants on the Couch‘ for those of you who like current popular music (I think).
Anyway, this week we got called in to do what for us was a relatively unusual job. Working on upholstery to be sure, but not in a car…rather the couch at a friend’s house! Well, we agreed to come over and have a look & sure enough, the skirt the young lady had been wearing had left a nice blue-black stain on the ecru colored couch. More specifically, on an arm rest as well as two vertical & horizontal panels. (We will not delve into how those may or may not have ended up there, thank you!)Â She insisted that her skirt had never left marks on any upholstery before, but was mortified that it had…even more so, since it wasn’t my friend’s couch, but his female roommate (No, they are not in a relationship!)
We actually see similar situations every once in a while in the detailing business, though it’s most often caused by someone rubbing their belt across the seat as they get in and out (I think it’s even more likely that they use a shoe or belt polish of some sort to keep the belt leather dark. Just a guess.)
For most stains on a leather couch the procedure is pretty simple; spray on some all-purpose cleaner (test on a less visible section first), use a brush with medium-stiff bristles to scrub the stain, then wipe away any foam or residue with a clean teri-cloth or suck it up with a wet/dry or shop vac. If the stain is visibly getting darker or larger, stop immediately. This is most likely because the dye (color) has been rubbed away in this area & you are actually taking off more dye as you scrub. For car seats, you will find this most often on the drivers side front seat edge where your back & bottom first make contact with the seat, then slide across it as you get in and out. The dye tends to wear thin here over time & with repetition.
In this case, we first warned our friend about the possibility of needing to redye the couch, then set about to remedy the situation. First we tested the all-purpose cleaner, which we were already pretty sure would not work (but better to go from least aggressive to most aggressive) with no results. Then we upped the ante to using a solvent used to remove crayon, ink & gummy substances from upholstery. This gave us slight, but not great results. So we took it one step further & introduced some #0000 steel wool into the mix (make sure to keep the steel wool wet as you scrub). Luckily this tactic gave us what we were looking for, because if we had to go any more aggressive, there would have been about an 75% likelihood that we would go through the dye. As it was I could see that the dye was wearing thin where we had to work it the hardest. Of course, now we had a beautiful, clean ecru section of couch, while the rest was fairly…, umm, shall we say brown?
Anyway, the end result was a nice clean couch, a room mate sans high temper, & me with a kiss on each cheek by a beautiful young Italian lady & her equally stunning older (slightly) sister. ;)  Pro Bono work may not make you ‘wealthy or wise’, but it can certainly be ‘healthy’ & most definitely happy.
As always, thank you for dropping by…& if you have any questions for us, please feel free to email or call.
