When the hubs and I first moved in together, he was not even
a hubs. We were also very recently out of school and very, very broke. With little money, we relied on the kindness
of friends and family and old furniture to make our little apartment a happy
home. The thing about old furniture is, it’s generally made well and usually
has an attractive design. Add a little paint, a little material and a little
elbow grease and you have yourself a one of a kind piece.
My first DIY furniture project involved some old chairs that
my parents purchased when they were first married. I thought the teak was kind
of interesting looking, but could not stand the weird black, brown, grey stuck
in the early 80’s material that was covering the cushions. A quick trip to the
fabric store and I found an awesome heavy duty yellow paisley that was also on
sale for like seven dollars a metre (score!). “Sweet!”, I thought to myself,
this will be easy. And it was,
relatively. It was a little labour
intensive (mostly due to the fact that I had no idea what I was doing) but,
armed with my trusty staple gun, I got the job done. And I must say, it turned out pretty ok!
I still like the idea of re-using old furniture and making
it into something new. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of IKEA going on, but
sometimes it’s nice to incorporate older pieces and give them your own personal
touch. Plus, it’s waaaaaaay better for
old mother earth if we try to re-use and reinvent rather than constantly
discarding and buying new stuff.
If you are looking for more inspiration, one of my most
favourite blogs to read has some sweet ideas for giving old, tired furniture a
little bit of a makeover.
Check it out here.
