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Upcycling to transform your home

ended 10. February 2022

A journalist at the Daily Express is looking for upcyclers and home interior experts to discuss trendy ways to "flip" or upcyle furniture around the home. Her questions are:

  • What furniture is currently popular to upcycle?
  • Are there any cheap hacks to transform furniture into key pieces?
  • Can people save money by upcycling rather than buying new?
  • Are there any examples of unexpected transformations that may even add value to the home?

Any thoughts, send them across. Deadline is end of the day.

2 responses from the Newspage community

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Editor
Kate Allen
Owner at Finest Stays
We are in the very fortunate position of seeing inside multimillion pound holiday homes on a regular basis. One thing is for sure; you can’t buy style! But you can hire an interior designer with skills, or learn how to upcycle with panache. We are seeing a huge trend in wardrobe renovations. The centre of the door panels are removed, placed with rattan canework and the woodwork repainted. The woven rattan is bang on trend and adds real charm to a wardrobe. It’s also cheap as chips as to do whilst giving a dated piece of furniture another lease of life. The seemingly innocuous cabinet doorknobs and drawer handles can be the main culprits in a dated kitchen. Upgrade these elements to give a simple facelift to one of the most important areas of your home. Do-it-yourself landscaping has to be one of the best ways to add value to your home. Channel your inner Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock to add some serious desirability to your home.
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Karen Kench
Designer/Maker at Kettle of Fish Designs
A current trend is for upcycling 'brown furniture' to give it a modern twist with vibrant paint or just lighten it up to suit modern interiors. It can still be bought cheaply from charity shops or even found for free through online marketplaces. You can find well made, solid wood pieces that deserve another chance and will last for many years. That's the tragedy of these pieces ending up in landfill, the wood they are made from is beautiful, slow grown timber that makes really sturdy bits of furniture. The range of paints and printing services available now is incredible. You can change the colour of PVCU windows and doors or even have your own fabric designs printed to give a much loved armchair a new lease of life. There are also now companies that make fantastic decals that can be applied to transform Ikea's basic wardrobes and drawers. I like to look sideways at household items and think of ways they can be given a new purpose, like using antique brass curtain rings as miniature frames, or old wooden bobbins as vases for dried flowers and grasses. I also love the trend for making pet beds out of old furniture! We have a basic Ikea kitchen that has upcycled science lab workbenches for the surfaces, with the offcuts used to make shelves and cupboard doors. The entire thing cost around £7k including appliances, so it can be very cost effective as well as having environmental benefits.