Furniture upcycling and repurposing are useful skills to learn when you’re decorating your home on a tight budget. You should start your project with old articles of furniture that you have around the house, and hit every yard sale that you can find when you run out of things.
Effective upcycling only needs an active imagination. Here are a few old furniture repurpose ideas.
1. Have an old sewing table?
Now that everyone has digital sewing machines, a boring old sewing table — one that has an opening on the tabletop to set an old-fashioned cast-iron sewing machine into and a wing table on the side — is no use.
If you have one lying around, though, a little tightening up and a good lick of paint can turn it into a drinks station: the sewing machine opening can hold bottles of beverage and an ice bucket. The wing table should work as a drinks preparation surface.
2. An old headboard can do almost anything
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A heavy, faded old headboard from an old bed may be uninteresting at first sight. With a little imagination, though, it’s possible to turn one into a chalkboard for your kid, a beautiful towel holder or the back of a garden bench.
3. What do you do with an embarrassing old entertainment station?
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Plenty of homes have old entertainment centers lying around. Televisions have long since changed in shape and people no longer have big hi-fi stereos. These entertainment units do still offer plenty of useful storage space.
With a great coat of glossy paint, they easily turn into regular storage. In the laundry room, for instance, one of these units could hold all sorts of laundry essentials.
4. An old coffee table for your kid
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If you have no idea what to do with an old coffee table other than haul it to the kerb, consider buying a can of chalkboard paint and covering the top with it. Your kids will have a grand time scribbling on it.
5. Turning an old dresser into a bookshelf
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Old dressers tend to be a problem — while the main structure may be strong enough, the drawers can jam up and stop being useful. It only takes minimal work to upcycle such a dresser.
Once you get rid of all the drawers, the structure that remains can function as a charming little cupboard after a makeover.
6. An old armoire for extra storage in the kitchen
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An old armoire should serve you well as a feestanding storage cabinet in the kitchen. With spice racks hung off the doors, storage baskets in the drawer cavities and a little lighting added to the shelves inside, you’ll have a great, modern-looking pantry cabinet in no time
7. Doing new things with an old coffee table
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A cheap old coffee table may not look like much. With a little upholstery, though, you can turn it into a wonderful bench or ottoman.
You’d save the hundreds of dollars that it takes to buy a new one.
8. Everyone has an old crib
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Usually, furniture only becomes unusable when it breaks down or sustains damage over time. Cribs, though, become unusable for no fault of their own. If you have a crib and no more kids on the way, consider upcycling it into a beautiful luxury swing.
You’ll need to do a little taking off one end, putting in fitted seat cushions and suspending it. In the end, though, you’ll have a one-of-a-kind luxury swing, though.
9. Furniture sawn in half
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A shaky end table or a chair with a broken leg may not seem salvageable: it can be expensive to get a carpenter to fashion legs for it. You have a great alternative, though; pick up a saw yourself and saw off one half of the article of furniture in question.
Then, you place it against the wall right next to your bed — as if it was half disappearing into the wall. You’ll have made yourself a great end table.
10. A dresser has a new life as a bench
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If you have no use for an old dresser just the way it is, you can knock off the top half and just retain the legs and the base that rests on it. With a little upholstery, you can turn this part into a wonderful bench.