Upcycle your way to style in the home
Here’s how to work out if it’s worth the time, money and effort involved in repurposing a piece of old furniture, writes Shabnam Dastgheib.
When Christchurch woman Leigh Aston scrolled past a particular couch on Trade Me, she knew immediately that it was the one she had been searching for. The Queen Anne-style cane couch with the dark floral print was obviously in need of new upholstery but the framing was in good nick and the style and size were exactly what Aston had been searching for.
‘‘I sort of jumped on it because they don’t come up that often,’’ she said.
She had been shopping for a new couch for a particular space in her house but the measurements weren’t compatible, and she hadn’t been able to find anything that could work.
Aston bought the old musty couch for $275, including delivery, and spent another $220 on foam and wadding for the cushions. She spent a little more than $100 for the fabric, choosing a ‘‘lush rusty velvet’’ for the cushions.
The refurbishing cost a total of $664 once a few other bits and pieces had been added. Costs were kept low because she was able to do the sewing herself.
Her budget for a brand-new sofa had been around $1000, but she hadn’t been able to find anything that was stylish and affordable.
Had she needed a professional to do the upholstering, it most likely would not have been as appealing a project as it was and, as a bonus, Aston got to put her third form sewing skills and basic sewing machine to the test.
The end result is a beautiful and comfortable oneof-a-kind couch that has been very popular on Aston’s Instagram page, and that her dog Morris has taken a particular liking to.
The couch was fast becoming everyone’s favourite spot in the house, though they had to fight morris for it, Aston said.
Aston is a civil servant and said she loved having the creative outlet in projects like this one.
The couch was fast becoming everyone’s favourite spot in the house, though they had to fight Morris, the dog, for it.
Leigh Aston, inset below
Is it worth the effort?
Upcycling furniture is a thoughtful, environmentally-friendly but time-consuming endeavour. It’s not for the time-poor or those who need a piece of furniture immediately.
It can be an expensive undertaking depending on what needs doing, and the end result is not a sure thing. It takes money to reupholster sun-worn cushions and to fix up broken framing.
It takes energy and imagination to see couch after tatty couch on Trade Me and know which one will transform into a living room showstopper and which ones are more suited to student flats.
And it takes vision and patience to see a furniture transformation through from beginning to end, something that can take months compared to buying a new piece from a chain store shop floor and taking it home that day.
Experts recommend being prepared with tools and knowledge before undertaking an upcycling project, and to be imaginative. Being sympathetic to the piece of furniture is also vital so it retains its character.
Interior designer and owner of homewares store Small Acorns, Amanda Holland, said if there was a piece of furniture that someone had an emotional attachment to, then it was worth the investment to re-cover it.
Her shop had never been busier restoring pieces of vintage furniture, and she put it down to a change in attitudes. ‘‘I definitely get the impression that people are a little more thoughtful about what they have in their home.
‘‘It’s that old saying, buy once and buy well. People are a bit more mindful about the pieces that they love,’’ she said.
New, mass-produced pieces of furniture made overseas often didn’t last long, whereas the quality framework on older pieces was often sturdy for decades, she said.
If you could use a contemporary fabric on a vintage piece of furniture then you had the best of both worlds, Holland said. Holland couldn’t give an estimate of how much a refurbishment would typically cost as it depended on whether the framing needed work, the fabric choices the client made, and the amount of time and labour it took to finish the project.
She said the costs of material had gone up in recent times but it often still worked out cheaper to reupholster than to buy new, as long as the client didn’t mind waiting the six to eight weeks it normally took to finish a couch.