Upcycling and restoring furniture are fantastic ways to breathe new life into an old piece of decor, returning its former beauty. Furniture restoration can restore an item, while upcycling may turn a nightstand into an eye-catching side table or turn an outdated cabinet into an impressive wine rack.
Thrift stores, garage sales and even online classified ads are full of pieces that could use some upcycling. You might as well give it a try! Here are a few reasons why:
It’s Eco-Friendly
There is also an argument for environmental sustainability, in the sense that there is a great deal of furniture in the world that ends up in landfills because not enough people upcycle and restore their furniture. Additionally, because it’s so much cheaper to restore your furniture than to go out and buy something ‘new’, you’ll be saving money too.
Refinishing things is also better for the environment because it takes less energy and natural resources to refinish a piece than to make a new one. Especially if low-VOC paints or natural finishes such as beeswax and linseed oil that are nontoxic, biodegradable and don’t contribute to poor air quality are used.
Creative refurbishment also means using recycled or salvaged materials such as salvaged wood and metal bits and bobs that would otherwise have gone to waste and end up in rubbish dumps, which in turn helps to tinge demand for new materials, and can also give the refurbished piece of furniture an extra character and quaintness. Finish it off with a paint job or stain job of your choosing and, voila, you have made something truly unique, and your very own home decor piece!
It’s Affordable
Upcycling our kitchen furniture was a creative and cheap way to get stuff for our new home without spending a fortune. It also provides a way to repurpose items that would have been put into the skip and sent to landfill; and recycling the wood rather than buying new reduces deforestation, which contributes to soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and global greenhouse gasses.
Your furniture items that you made from reclaimed materials include a bathroom vanity and a nightstand that you can convert to a unique and beautiful bathroom vanity or turn a dresser to a very customised coffee table.
You can do it yourself on wooden furniture, or subcontract it to artisans and workshops nearby .
It’s Creative
Upcycling and repairing furniture can be a fun way to use creativity to give new life to an old furniture piece.
Upcycling is a great opportunity for you to get creative and upcycling money from old jars to new jars and even turning an old large piece of fabric to dish towels that have awesome designs made out of scrap fabric.
Upcycling and making stuff is a great way to be resourceful for our planet since less unethical materials that are not friendly to our planet go into the landfill.
First, wipe the furniture down so it’s clean and sand it to provide a smooth surface for a good coat of paint. Choose good quality paint, and add stencilling or decoupage for an added pop. Be creative with your hardware, too — new knobs or handles can really make something good into something great.
Restoring and upcycling furniture does far more than simply save money and the environment. Not only can you save money and be doing a service to the earth, it can be excellent for your interiors – from turning memory of your dressers as bathroom-vanities to upcycling ladders into plant stands, the choices are endless. Come try it – perhaps, a phoenix might rise out of the old dresser in your garage!
It’s Timeless
Renovating furniture is an old craft and a wise investment that helps your wallet and the planet. By giving materials a new life, you’re keeping them out of landfills where they decompose into methane and carbon dioxide emissions that cause harm to our environment.
Thrift stores are a good place to start , along with garage sales and those friendly online classifieds that proliferate these days; while the ‘sky’s the limit’ when it comes to creating something new and noteworthy from donated furniture with a bit of imagination! Painting and staining, or even decoupaging, features on to furniture are all ways to create your very own bespoke pieces, adding your own character along the way.
Unlike an upcycling business, Timeless Elegance Restorations conducts true restoration, which also means a focus on eco-friendly repairs. All our materials at the workshop are chemical-free and our energy usage is always low-wattage – part of our ecological footprint, and also something our clients appreciate in a field in which greener production is becoming a trend.