How to Repair Cat Scratches on Leather Furniture

Nothing is more frustrating than to find that your cat has used your beautiful leather sofa for a scratching post. Depending upon the severity of the damage, there are a few tricks you can try to lessen the unsightly marks.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Paste/wax shoe polish, same color as leather
• Old English furniture polish
• Soft clean cloth for cleaning leather
• Felt tip markers, same color as leather

1. If the scratches are severe, the only way to fully restore the leather is leather repair by a professional. Cost can vary greatly, so unless the scratches are extremely bad and are in an obvious and noticeable place, you might want to consider trying a few temporary remedies to minimize the appearance of the damage. If the damage isn't severe or is in an out of the way area on the furniture, you will definitely find it cheaper to use one of the temporary methods.

2. For minor surface scratches, try applying Old English furniture polish directly on the scratch and work it in with a circular motion, using a soft cloth. This might reduce the appearance of the scratch once it has fully dried. You will need to reapply the polish periodically, as it wears off. If this isn't enough damage control for you, try using a fine tipped felt marker as close to the shade of the leather as possible. Do not use a darker shade on light leather! That will draw more attention to the scratch.

3. Paste shoe polish as close as possible to the same color as the leather can be worked into the scratches with a buffing cloth. Start with a very small amount and add in small increments until you get a positive result.

4. There are products on the market that are specifically for leather repair. If your damage is too severe for the above treatments but you want to avoid the cost of reupholstering, one of these products might be right for you. Magic Mender at leatherrepairkits.com offers a leather repair product with customer testimonials. You can also find leather repair products and advice at Advanced Leather Solutions, www.advleather.com. Be sure to ask if any of the repair kits or products should be used by a professional. Even if you had the repair work done professionally, it would almost certainly be cheaper than reupholstering.

Tips & Warnings

• If there is material fuzz around deep scratches, carefully clip them away with scissors. This will make the damaged area less noticeable.
• Apply any product, polish, marker or other solution very lightly!
• Keep animals away from any solutions or polishes until they are fully dried.
• Assuming you still have the cat or other animals, do not use any solutions or polishes that are toxic to animals.

Resources

• Leather Magic Customer Testimonials
• Do-It-Yourself Leather Restoration
• Leather Repair, Paint, Kits

[Rockney]

on 3/19/2009 Great article! 5*!