My First Coach Restore

I plan on at least attempting to alternate posts about running and thrift shopping as much as possible.  Since I went thrift shopping today, I'll start there.
I am crazy about thrift shopping.  I make it a point to go at least once a week to my favorite stores, usually on the days that they have huge sales (which happen three times a week, but since I can I avoid going on weekends.)  It started as trying to complete a "spice of life" pyrex set that the previous tenant of our old apartment left behind.  Then I started exploring a little bit further around the store.  And I discovered how amazing it is to go thrift shopping in a suburb!!  When we lived in Blacksburg, I was lucky to find an unopened box of 5.25'' disks (a little piece of my childhood), and a VHS of an old Degrassi special (oddly released on my 9th birthday!)  

Oh no.  Thrifting now is so much more amazing than that. I'm able to find designer purses more often than not, and I would say about half the time they're real.  (However, a lot of the time they are also trashed or aged.  So if you're not afraid of a little bit of work it's worth the effort!)  The first vintage Coach bag I found that I restored to its former glory was a Stewardess.  There are many ways to restore a Coach bag, but this is how I like to do it.

Before

After

The whole experience of my first restore (or "rehab") was a little nerve wracking, but totally worth it.  The process goes like this:  You dunk the bag in warm, soapy water.  (I used a mild dish soap.)  Yes.  You put a leather bag into water.  Essentially you're giving the leather a drink, since chances are it's very dried out like my bag was at first.  The water will have changed color when you take the bag back out.  Case in point...

ewwww

Then you dry off the bag as much as you can, and let it air dry the rest of the way.  I also stuffed paper towels and even an empty box from birchbox in there to help reshape the bag.  

Now the hardest part:  Waiting for it to dry!

Also note, this bag is NOT lined--it just nothing but leather and brass.  This makes the whole dunking process a lot easier and a lot less nerve wracking.  Once the bag has dried, you can clean the brass, and then condition and preserve the bag to help product all your hard work.  Keep in mind that this is a VERY brief tutorial, and it's different for every single bag.  Sometimes the bag is more stained than others, or more worn in some places.  I've learned a lot by reading some of the advice on the PurseBlog Forum specifically for Coach bags.  It is totally worth the wait and the work.  Once the leather conditioner was full absorbed into the bag, it gained an amazing, super soft (what some would describe as "buttery") texture that you expect from a Coach bag right off the shelf.  Rehabbing bags is very addictive.  Since this first rehab, I've been on the lookout for my next project bag.