Advanced Leather Solutions

Wow, wow, wow! 5+ Stars for above-​and-​beyond service and amazing products! After watching Kevin Gillan’s YouTube video about types of leather and reviewing the company website’s product information, I wanted further guidance. So I emailed Kevin — on a Saturday — and he not only got back to me within hours, but also answered all my questions and gave me a product recommendation. I just finished conditioning my leather couch and love seat with SG-​25 (for unfinished leather) and it looks amazing!!! After 20 years of only dusting it, I didn’t have much hope that it could look this nice again. Thank you so very much for your guidance and product! I’m a fan and forever customer!

Great customer service and high quality products here. We brought in an ottoman for color matching for a DYI project to fill in some faded and nicked portions of a leather chair and ottoman. The owner prepared a color match and instructed in applying it. The application at home was a simple rub with a wet cloth. The color match was perfect, and the chair looks like new.

This was my second purchase from Advanced Leather. After sending the broken leather seat to Advanced Leather late, I called and said that we needed the work much faster than normal. As is usual, the said they try and added that they would ship via air express and would call on the Monday to confirm the finish date. To my surprise, the package was delivered on the MONDAY. As always, the work was perfect and matched the damaged piece exactly, the workmanship better than the original. How often are people friendly and courteous, do wonderful work and exceed promises and expectations? Rarely, but certainly at Advanced. It is a pleasure to applaud a business and the people who work there, everyone. A pleasure.

Honesty and integrity is what this company has shown me. After sending photos and emails, Kevin explained that I didn’t have real leather furniture and therefore shouldn’t put any more money into repairing it. He easily could have sold me several hundred dollars worth of repair kits which he could have said I applied incorrectly, if I complained. Instead, Kevin discouraged me from buying any products and spent a lot of time educating me about what furniture makers call leather and what is actually not leather. I have a ton of respect for a company who takes time to educate a customer with no monetary reward in sight. As it turns out, I have a lot of friends in the SF area and will refer them to here… Thanks, Kevin, for being honest and restoring my faith!

Kevin is extremely knowledgeable, helpful, and honest. I would look no further if you have any leather or upholstery repair needs. He assessed pictures of the damage to my leather couch and gave me expert advise on how to go about it.

This is a long overdue review but I am grateful for Kevin who helped me through a leather problem with my sectional. I was initially referred to this company by Scandinavian Designs as my beautiful red leather sectional was peeling. Turns out, my sofa was not pure leather and Kevin was able to explain the process of manufacturing in the years of 2007 and 2008 in China and some of us are stuck with peeling furniture. My couch could not be fixed.
However, I love the couch and bought another one. The store sent a leather sample to Kevin who verified its quality and 6 months later, we now have our new beautiful sectional.
Thank you to Kevin for working with me for what seems to have been years on this project. I blamed myself for letting too much sun get into our house but I am glad that was not the issue and we have a new couch.
Highly recommend doing business, very courteous and went out of his way to help with something that didn’t even provide him with income. I will definitely call when I do have another leather issue.
Thank you Kevin, I appreciate your help.

Kevin and his team saved my new leather sofa. I’m a BIG fan!
Kevin and Yvonne were extremely responsive to my MANY questions (by phone and e-​mail) as I decided whether having the significant cat scratch marks on my new leather sofa would be worth repairing and figuring out how I was going to arrange transportation to his shop. He was very honest about the fact that while I would know where the spots were even after repair, no one else would. He even suggested that I come to the shop to look over the repairs (which I did) to ensure that I was pleased before having the sofa moved back home. It was worth the drive from San Jose. It was a pleasure to meet the team, approve the repairs, and be educated about leather repair and maintenance in person.
Kevin and his team are true professionals. I’m thrilled to have my couch back looking like new (to anyone who doesn’t know EXACTLY where to look). I’m a happy customer and recommend them highly!

We are absolutely satisfied with Advanced Leather Solutions. I found a very high end sofa, love seat, chair and ottoman set on craigslist. I e-​mailed pics to Kevin who advised me that it was in fact a Roche Bobois set and that it could be refinished. Kevin gave us a tour of their shop and walked my husband through every step of the repair.
As it turns out, my husband refinished the set in a home that was mildewy and now we’re not sure if we can have the set in the house. (I’m highly sensitive to mold.) In hindsight, he feels that it would have been completely worthwhile to have had ALS do the refinishing. They do a fantastic job and charge a fair price.
We now know more about refinishing and taking care of leather than we ever did before. ALS really knows their stuff.

outstanding job and outstanding service also. we needed to ‘refurbish’ a black leather (rosewood handled) chair from 1967 and matching 4 seater sofa purchased on the east coast (and from norway) in 1960. many of the cushions were brought back essentially to a ‘like new’ condition and with two cushions that were cut thru the outer layer of the leather they recommended replacing the leather altogether. they did a perfect job of matching the leather/​color and everything important about those cushions. results were amazing! that plus kevin there (the owner i believe) is simply one of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet. while i was initially there he showed me a very very valuable and special car seat pillow from an antique auto that someone from L.A. had sent to him for restoring… just another indication to me that the firm has a wide reputation in the state. as an person with interior design experience i am happy to recommend them unhesitatingly. 5-​stars plus! let me add one other thing: in the design center in sf there is a showroom that carries only the highest end leather in the country and this showroom also recommended advanced leather solutions to me also! in addition a local upholsterer in the east bay who i have used for many many years suggested this company also to me.

Unfortunately, a glass of red wine was spilled on the chair. I tried using a leather cleaning kit that I had around the house. A terrible chemical reaction occurred and I made the stain a thousand times worse… something about the type of leather my chair was.
Cost wasn’t that much considering what we paid for the chair and that the chair was less than a year old. I was extremely pleased. The chair was restored to the exact original color. It has been almost 4 years and the chair still looks great.
I would caution people to not try to clean their own leather with home leather cleaning kits. Their is a lot to know about the various types of leathers, and these kits don’t give proper instructions OR warnings.
Use a professional.

I found Advanced Leather Solutions through my interior decorator. I visited their shop with a sample cushion. The sofa was 22 years old and in serious need of repair. Lots of scratches for cats, dogs and years of hard wear from children. They had to replace the leather on several of the cushions, buff out scratches, and re-​dye it.
Kevin provided me a quote and explained what work would need to be performed. I received the sofa, chair and ottoman back yesterday and it is showroom new condition. I could not be happier.

We found Advanced Leather Solutionos online and had a near-​miraculous experience in changing the color of our furniture, while removing ten years of wear.
When friends admire our sofas, I bring out the test swatch they gave me showing Before & After on one piece of leather. They seem reluctant to believe the evidence in front of them, and say «I didn’t know you could do that.»
A year and a half after we had this work done, we’re still grateful to Kevin, Yvonne and their crew.
We had a large couch, loveseat, and ottoman, 15 years old, extremely comfortable, in a gray leather. We were moving and wanted a more earthy color.
We visited the company’s office/​workshop and picked out a tint. We arranged through their recommended trucker for them to pick up from our house and deliver to our new location.
The company also offers to supply the materials for DoItYourselfers, but we knew this was a job for professionals. These couches had sewn-​in cushions, so they had to keep areas pried open to apply and dry the new color. And their pricing was lower than it would have cost to buy new and not as good.
They did a phenomenal job, and the result was couches that looked brand-​new.

Kevin and crew did a fabulous job restoring the seating area on my beautiful Italian leather sofa (it was a special wedding gift). After it was returned I applied a coat of their leather cleaner — conditioner and it looks great.
Unlike some other reviews, I found his services to be professional and fairly priced. Since I live in Berkeley shipping was expensive but Charles was very careful and delivered on time.

If I could give them 0, I would.
Kevin came to our condo after a relocation team scratched the heck out of our brand new, $ 4,000 leather couch. There was also (somehow) a big dark grease stain on one of the fabric areas and some huge indents in the back panel. After requesting a full replacement, Kevin was instead sent over to assess the potential of a repair.
He seemed very amicable and assured us he could make it as close to new as possible (though admittedly not «new»).
But to cut a very long story short, they did buff out a number of the scratches satisfactorily, but not all of them. In fact, the sofa returned with some new scratches and a ripped off foot caster.
The grease stain was not even slightly better. To which Kevin responded in a written letter, «we never claimed to be fabric experts».
And worst of all, when I tried to appeal to the moving company that the work was unsatisfactory, Kevin blamed our cat for the new damages. He basically got his money for a poor job and screwed me out of getting my sofa replaced.

In fairness, I should start by saying I didn’t use them. I had a small rip in my leather couch (a little more an inch). The person who answered the phone, Jeffrey, sounded slightly put out answering the phone. He asked me to email a photo, which I did. Jeffrey earned a star for emailing me back within the hour, but the quote was for $ 575. I ended up talking to my village cobbler who told me how to repair it for $ 6. Might this company have done a better job than my fix? Probably. Would it be 100 times better? I doubt it.
Addendum 10÷19÷12: I received an email from Kevin Gillan today pointing out that the quote for the repair was for $ 225. The additional $ 350 was for transportation. He is correct and that is an accurate description of the quote. I will restate again that I did not use Advanced Leather Solutions so I can not speak to the quality of their work.

My furniture looks amazing! I wish I had taken before and after photos.
Kevin said if I sent a swatch from underneath the couch, he could match the color exactly. We did not do this and sent photos instead. The color is beautiful! Having said that, if I had done the swatch, I might not have had to do the entire back and sides of all the furniture. It was a tiny bit lighter so i had to do all of the furniture. I did everything exactly as instructed in the manual. I watched the video several times.
We think the color is better now and my husband was amazed how brand new this 35 year old furniture looks.
We will be doing another Italian Leather Couch and Sofa. That one I will absolutely send the swatch.
I am so glad I found Kevin on You Tube!!! P. S. The slide presentation on Picasa was also helpful in understanding the final print process.
Also…the kit came with twice the product that I needed as Kevin had said it would. I also emailed Kevin several times to make sure i was doing things right. i found Kevin to be extremely helpful and polite. He emailed me right away. I completely recommend this company and Kevin can give my email address and phone number if anyone wants a verbal recommendation or photos of my finished product.

I just restored my 7 year old leather furniture (sofa, loveseat and chair) with a kit from Advanced Leather Solutions. They were scratched and chafed by my dogs and cat, including some pretty bad cat scratches.
I LOVE the results. They look fantastic and it was very easy to do. I followed the very detailed instructions that came with the kit, and my furniture looks sensational. I am thrilled!
I was ready to give the furniture away to my daughter and spend a ton of $$ on all new stuff. Now they have a whole new life! Worth every penny.

Here is my excellent experience with Advanced Leather Solutions.
I’d received a leather flight jacket as a gift; it was glossy and I wanted it matte. I found the ALS web page and emailed a query.
Within a half hour Kevin (Gillan?) of ALS called me. He’d checked out the web site of U.S. Wings, from which my jacket had been purchased, and he gave me 1) detailed, understandable information about the chemistry of the issue I faced, and 2) detailed instructions on how to proceed.
So I got a jacket I can now wear with pleasure. When I dropped an electronic note to Kevin letting him know how things had turned out and saying one more word of thanks, this was his reply:
«And, thanks for your kind words. But remember, you’re the one who did the work, I just gave you some ideas to run with.
«The business model actually does work. Its as much a life model as it is a business model. Our company philosophy is «No Secrets.» We’re here to help. That word travels and has done us well for 23 years.
«Enjoy your jacket! It’s completely unique now having been customized by and for you.»
A good friend of mine who knows his stuff in retail services found it hard to believe I’d been given expert, free advice (the best of it: first try a test patch that will not be seen).
One customer’s five-​star experience.

Very disappointing results, and a dishonest company. Their home repair kit utterly destroyed a leather chair from Pottery Barn. As a compromise, I asked for, and the owner (Kevin) agreed to, give me a refund on the price of the repair kit (about $ 300). But, despite repeated requests, they haven’t refunded the amount. So now it looks like I’ll need to sue them in small claims court. Feel free to send me a message, and I’ll forward you the e-​mail correspondence that I had with them to back this up. So stay away.

My experience with Advanced Leather Solutions in Hayward was nothing short of wonderful. I had two high-​end pieces of leather furniture that got damaged, and my local furniture cleaning and repair place recommended that I take them to a specialist. I found Advanced Leather Solutions by poking around with search engines, and took them my beloved furniture items.
They treated me well, the price they charged was reasonable (especially compared to what it would have cost me to replace the furniture), the service was outstanding, and their responsiveness was as good at it gets.
I can imagine that it would not be worth taking Ikea furniture to them.
I wholeheartedly and without reservation recommend this company both for quality of work and for customer service. No, I do not have any affiliation with them, and they don’t even know I am writing this review.