Friday, January 14, 2011

Repurposing furniture and other things

Hello everyone! It’s January 2011 and as most of us are broke after the December month I thought I write a post about repurposing or altering things you already own or can find for little money.

Looking at the overload of TV commercials from the home superstores it seems that the nation is obsessed with getting new furniture, buying new kitchens and bathrooms and basically getting their whole house done for springtime. I can't help but think people must still all want to keep up with the Joneses and subsequently put themselves into debt as a result, despite the difficult economic times we're in. Anyway, how about we don’t buy all those expensive new things but instead look at what we already own or can find for free or little money and how we can give it a new life?

This is a vintage sofa my mum once rescued from the marriage resistry office at the local Town Hall in Emmen, The Netherlands. Although not repurposed by physically changing it, I gave it a new purpose by placing it in my student room, and later moved it to my first apartment. When I moved again and the sofa turned out to be too large, I had it "adopted" by my good friend Mieke in Utrecht, who now loves it. Schools, local authority buildings and other offices sometimes get rid of furniture, shelving units and desks. Worth keeping an eye out for them...



I got inspired by this post on the Daily What and really wanted to share this with you. "The amazing transformed oven lounge". Not something you would DIY on a Saturday, but what a great idea!




I also came across this - I must admit slightly silly - idea of repurposing a water wing via Apartment Therapy. Still, it's very original!



Has anyone ever looked at the Ikea Hacker site? It's brilliant how people take a run-of-the-mill Ikea item and just make it into something else. Now this Billy bookcase is still a Billy bookcase, except the owner has 'hacked' it by turned it on its side and mounting it onto the wall making it 'float'. Cool!





Fruit crates are very versatile to reuse in the home. Here they've been mounted onto the kitchen wall to be used as open shelving, looking very nice. Found it on the great blog Poetic Home.




Another amazing project featured on Poetic Home is this huge desk made from repurposed books, created by Architectural students at Delft University of Technology. Could you imagine something similar for your own home in the shape of a smaller desk or coffee table?


My car (a lovely old Mazda Mx5 with pop-up head lights) had to go for its MOT today and failed on a rusty bottom (ooh, that doesn't sound right, does it, haha). We're getting it repaired - once again - but if ever it had to die, I would like it to be turned into a sofa, like Bel & Bel have done with a Seat 600. What a cracker.

I drive one in black - such a cool little car

What have you given a new life?

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