Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
ULTI ATE UPCYCLING!
Don’t dump it – give it a magical makeover, say the hosts of an uplifting new DIY show
Redundancy forced Zoe Pocock to look at her life in a new way. Once a nail technician to stars including Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie, when she lost her job – at the same time as her husband – she got depressed. Her only solace was her desire to make things look beautiful. She’d makeover old chests of drawers with wallpaper, turn toys into lampshades and prams into indoor gardens. Her ‘luxe cycling’ soon attracted buyers, and before she knew it she had a business bigger than she could have imagined.
That halted when coronavirus shut everything down. But she knew that when one door closes, another opens. She gained a huge social media audience showing quarantined Brits how to transform stuff they may see as rubbish – and now she’s on national TV.
‘It changes your world when you think you can do something,’ says Zoe, who along with Kate Humble and Max Mcmurdo hosts joyous new series The Weekend Workshop. ‘Our show is all about having a go,’ says Zoe. ‘It doesn’t matter if you fail, there’s huge positivity in being creative. I know from the feedback on Instagram how many people were enjoying making things during lockdown.’
The eight-part series on interiors channel HGTV shows the upcyclers having a crack at all sorts. It was made at the height pulled, a hidden door pops out of of lockdown with just the crafter the wall and becomes a table and a cameraman present, and covered in fake flowers. She also the ideas are inspirational. ‘Make turns a chair into a baby mobile do and mend is how our parents using bits of wood, more fake and grandparents were raised, flowers and old toys. now we’re doing that,’ says Zoe. She’s joined by Countryfile’s ‘Shopping is changing and Kate Humble, who upcycles we should appreciate at her Monmouthshire what we have. home. ‘Making
‘I’ve never had stuff for your much money, own home is so I upcycle one of life’s from rubbish pleasures,’ or charity says Kate, shops.’ who creates a
Among the wood-fired objects is a pizza oven from lampshade. ‘I clay found in her saw a Jasper Conran own back garden, a one that I loved, but Kate getting to work natural sofa made it cost £500,’ she on the show out of turf and a herb says. ‘So I made my own out of garden in an old bathtub. chicken wire, party poppers and The third crafter is Max twigs. It’s the best I’ve seen and Mcmurdo, who changed his life it only cost £20.’ when he grew disillusioned with
The series also sees her making all the waste left at the Ford an ‘outdoor room’; when a lever is factory he worked at. ‘I left my flat, bought an old camper van and became an eco-designer,’ he says. ‘It was in 2002; upcycling wasn’t even a word. I thought I’d be a millionaire but no one cared.’
In 2007 he went on Dragons’ Den where he pitched a furniture range made out of old shopping trolleys. Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis both backed him with an investment totalling £50,000, which he’s since repaid. ‘They changed everything for me,’ he says, ‘I haven’t looked back.’
In 2015 he made a stunning boat out of a shipping container for George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces, which he lives on. And in this show he makes a hot tub out of a Land Rover and a memorial for a lady who lost her husband, using a piano as a water feature.
‘This series is raw and real,’ he says. ‘We’re all experimenting, we show it’s OK to make mistakes.’
Ben Brockman The Weekend Workshop, Monday, 8pm, HGTV (Sky 158, Virgin 286).