Recycling Furniture: Great Ideas
Photo by Jessica Delp on Unsplash
Everyone occasionally encounters situations where they have to take care of old items. It can be when it comes to moving, renovating the house, buying new things, deciding to take out old objects, or rearranging the item so that you can use them for other purposes.
However, Upcycling your old furniture can be a very lucrative and satisfying business if you decide to upcycle furniture. You can buy plenty of different and cheap wooden furniture options and easily sand and repaint it to make a small amount per item of cash on the side.
Facebook has as many upcycled furniture people out there who are making a killing from this small business. Maybe it is time you tried it.
Sometimes you can use old items to transform your home and make it look fashionable. These items very often include old clothes, shoes, and furniture.
However, old furniture pieces are the most impactful when decorating your home, and there are numerous ways to repurpose old furniture pieces. For example, when you decide to replace your old loft ladder with a newer model, such as one of the OptiStep loft ladders, you can use the old one as rustic decoration. Wood ladders can be a great focal piece when sanded down and coated.
The choice of method may depend on the furniture’s age, type, size, and many other characteristics. It can even depend on the sentimental value that thing carries for the individual who has to get rid of it. Therefore, it is necessary to harmonize all these factors to take care of old items successfully.
Get Creative When Repurposing
Giving a new look to the bed, wardrobes, dressers, or even headboards from the bedroom changes the whole experience of the room itself. First and foremost, you can always paint an old worn-out bed and transform its appearance.
Permanent colors, sprays, and transparent varnish can significantly help you paint your bedroom, representing a great technique to improve your bedroom design. These products can bring back life to old tables, beds, chairs, and other pieces that have lost their shine and color over time.
Expressing your creativity is, in addition to being one of the ways to repurpose old furniture pieces, a great way to have fun and challenge your imagination. Also, decorating your furniture can represent quality time spent with your loved ones and, above all, it is productive.
If there is a wooden chest of drawers in your bedroom that you want to throw away – think twice. You can never have enough storage space, and there are many places in your home where you can fit an old chest.
- Depending on the height, you can use it as under-bed storage.
- If the chest is small, mount it on your bathroom wall and use it as a medicine cabinet.
- Place a cushion on top and repurpose it as an ottoman.
- Lay it flat on your porch and plant flowers in the compartments of the cabinet. Remember that you may need to add some insulation between the soil and the wood.
Who Said that Items for The Kitchen Can Only Be Used There?
If you are a lover of vintage home decorating or bored with your kitchen’s current composition, this is one of many ways to repurpose old furniture pieces that you’ll find interesting.
If the kitchen chairs are not the most stable or their lifespan is too long, you can easily convert them into a coat rack on the wall. Start by disassembling the wooden chair and putting away the part where you sit – the backrest. If you wish to keep the backrest and use it for decoration, you can repaint it, stick it on the wall, and get a distinctive vintage look for your kitchen. Using old furniture can save you money and give you a great deal of pleasure when completed.
Also, you can use old wooden chairs to make a bench, which will undoubtedly contribute to the freshness of the house’s yard. Just a length of foam, some fabric, and enough plywood to cover all three seats are required.
Besides this, if you love the industrial style, you can use your old faucet even after it breaks! You can repurpose a rusty, broken, or dysfunctional faucet as part of a lamp. Run an electrical cable through the pipe, and affix a light bulb socket at the end of the faucet.
This also does not require much effort; the only thing you will have to do afterward is to find a light bulb of suitable dimensions. However, if you don’t feel confident working with electrical wires, you can get the help of an electrician, and they will be able to put the industrial lights together for you in no time.
Depending on the size of your kitchen cabinets, you can join several pieces together and create an improvised kitchen island. Combining items can open many new opportunities to repurpose old furniture pieces.
Alternatively, if you have very small cabinets, you can add wheels to the bottom and use them as portable storage. If you have old pallets or crates in your kitchen, you can put several of them together and add swivel plate casters to the bottom to create a rugged cabinet you can use for storage.
Repurposed furniture as decoration
It is a fact that many people have furniture in their homes that they forget existed. In addition, sometimes they don’t even know what it is for, and in the end, it never occurs to them what they could repurpose it for. Don’t be one of those people.
An old piano you think serves no purpose other than gathering dust can easily be a decorative table. The only thing you will need is glass and goodwill. Old wooden closets, which are ready for the trash, offer parts that can be valuable for repurposing. For example, the front door of the closet can serve as a good and high-quality coat rack. Placing items in rooms, they don’t naturally belong in can be a great way to have your pieces stand out.
Ladders as an option
As is already known, every home needs ladders as necessary equipment. Without them, many decorative jobs are impossible to envision and finish. But just like everything else, we eventually wish to replace the old ladders with new ones.
You can give old wooden ladders a brand-new sheen and functionality because they play a significant role in contemporary interior design. Their practicality is equally as substantial as their aesthetic value because we may use them in all of our home’s rooms as part of the furniture.
Paint, wicker baskets, and ornamental lighting are all options for updating the wooden ladder. A well-kept wooden ladder will offer your house some rustic flair.
Potential places for placing ladders
Depending on your preferences, ladders can be placed in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom. A ladder in the kitchen makes the ideal shelf for dishes and spices you want to keep handy. Then, the ladder can serve as a shelf for storing shampoo, soap, and towels, representing a simple, updated small bathroom change.
In the bedroom, you can also use the ladder to store clothes. If you have small children, use two pairs of this furniture full of potential to make them a room tent, they will inevitably be thrilled with the new play area. One thing is certain: you can never go wrong if you decide to repurpose an old ladder.
Transforming the tub
This example of repurposing furniture is impossible to do in one weekend. Namely, it requires a lot of time. It will take much time and effort to remove the hardware, sandblast, cut, sand, paint, and make the cushions. If you’re persistent, you’ll enjoy your modern, unusual sofa made out of a bathtub when you’re done!
Build your own wine rack
An unexpected, but useful and practical detail of your seemingly unusable bed – an old mattress, can be repurposed into something interesting. The part of the mattress responsible for this is the metal coils since they are the perfect shape for holding, displaying, and storing wine.
Gut the mattress and remove the springs, and use them to create a wine bottle holder! You will also need a wooden panel; your wine rack is complete. If you are a wine lover, you can simultaneously admire your creation and a great wine collection.
Alternatives to throwing things away
There are always alternative solutions if you can’t repair, rearrange the look or repurpose the old furniture. If possible, recycle your old furniture. Additionally, you can donate your old furniture to charity or give them to relatives or friends in need. In these situations, holding a garage sale is also an excellent option.
How to keep the furniture lasting
Your furniture will inevitably take damage and deteriorate over time. However, there are certain situations where your possessions are more likely to get damaged, like during a move. When moving, you will want to protect your furniture as best you can. First of all, you will have to go through several necessary stages. It is essential to take into account the size, weight, and sensitivity of the furniture itself.
For example, movers protect your furniture during a move using all the tools and materials required to guarantee the furniture’s protection. It is desirable to measure the length and width of the furniture, clean it and pack it with appropriate tools and materials.
Despite having a solid appearance and feel, most furniture pieces are relatively bulky-big, weighty, and frequently delicate. Precisely for this reason, you must stock up on the necessary and sufficient quantity of the previously mentioned things, such as:
- scissors,
- glue,
- packing tape,
- bubble wrap,
- and many others.
To sum up
It would help to not give up your old furniture too quickly when you think it’s unusable. Think carefully and explore all the possible options to extend its life. There are many ways to repurpose old furniture pieces. Be willing to find a way when the opportunity to do so arises. With a bit of creativity, you can turn trash into treasure.