I am working on refinishing an entire pleasure driving cart. I’m working on a post to cover that through to completion (which, who knows when that will actually be), but there are a few projects within I want to document separately. Here’s the first (and easiest) one: The seat. It makes me really happy to have spent $9 on a bottle of dye instead of $250 on a new seat! Saving where I can gives me more room to purchase the things that I really do need.

First off, the seat is actually in pretty nice shape. No splits in the material and no major flaws to the leather. The snaps and snap straps are still intact and there are no tears anywhere. It was just faded and a little dingy looking, not new looking. What should I expect for a seat that is likely 20 years old give or take. I don’t know what kind of material this thing is made of, some kind of velvety something or another, but I chose a suede shoe dye to bring it back to life.

The kind I purchased is shown below and the lid came with a little dobber applicator attached to it so it was really easy to just paint the dye on. First, I sprayed the dust off the seat with the air compressor. Then just went to town with the dye, and left it to sit for a few hours to dry. SUPER easy! I love little projects with BIG results. The photos speak for themselves.

A side by side of the before/after