Bright ideas

This weekend our Real Home section features The Shed, a luxurious holiday let that was once a 33ft dilapidated shed.

It belongs to Lynsey Ford, a contestant on the BBC2 series Interior Design Masters.

If you have seen it you’ll see she is multi talented. An architect by profession, she also has a flair for interior design and DIY.

She specialises in upcycling and The Shed is full of vintage items she has transformed.

Among them is the chair pictured below and right, in its before and after state.

“Taking an old chair and giving it new life is probably one of the easiest projects you can do,” says Lynsey, who stripped the chairs of their dark varnish and then sanded them before covering the seat pad with new fabric from Dewsbury-based Fabworks.

A whole set of upcycled dining chairs now sit round the dining table, which itself is also upcycled.

It was once a cast-off, damaged piece of furniture that had split in the middle. The team at Lynsey’s local woodyard wasn’t surprised when she asked to buy it and then asked them to strap strengthening joints across the split to stop it falling apart.

A visit to a local steel fabricator led to lots of good ideas on how the base and legs should be made and she now has a beautiful, one-off piece of furniture that is tribute to talented tradespeople and her vision.

As anyone who has had a go at upcycling will tell you, it’s fun, absorbing and rewarding. YouTube is a great place for “how to” videos.