Upcycling. The First Attempt.

I developed a major passion for upcycling furniture within the last year or so. This was my first upcycle attempt and I had a lot to learn. I bought the dressing table from a British Red Cross store it was 100% wood and came with a stool and a great mirror and all for £40, bargain! It was a really dark brown colour and just a bit dreary. I had just moved into my boyfriends house in Battersea and needed a ‘me’ zone (he likes things very tidy). We had some left over paint from the walls called ‘antique cream’ so I just used that. I bought some lovely knobs for the drawers but it was actually impossible to get them off so I just painted over them and they looked good.

Stage 1 – Sanding… lots of sanding! The paint sticks a lot better when everything is sanded down.
Stage 2 – Paint, as I said before antique cream gave it a vintage feel.
Stage 3 – Line the drawers. A great tip for this is to sneak into a department store and get wallpaper samples. This is obviously a bit naughty, but I was on a budget! I got a lovely wood effect in mustard yellow and cream which was really complimentary to the cream.
Stage 4 – Re-upholster the seat cover. I still have not learned how to do this, luckily my mum knows how. Note to self, I must learn!

Things I learned from my first time:

1. I didn’t use a primer. I did not want to spend the extra money/go back to the shop, which was a mistake. It took a lot of coats of paint to get rid of the brown. Always use a primer.
2. Buy paint suitable for wood. The wall paint does work but can chip.
3. Wax Wax Wax! Waxing is so important. The amount of make-up that stained it and had to repaint over before selling it on.
4. I was watching Kirsty’s Vintage Home and they used a tool to scrape of the sides of chairs to make them have more of a vintage feel. It would have been great to do that. I may experiment the next time but use a normal kitchen knife.
5. New knobs – I wish I could have forced these off.

I ended up selling this on ebay for £85. So after using it for a couple of years and then selling it on for a profit of £45 put a big smile on my face.