Best Sites for Restoring Furniture Advice & Tips
Does your sense of style surpass your income? Read through any home décor magazine or blog, and you may find yourself discouraged, wondering when you will get to have nice things. Thankfully, plenty of folks feel this way and have come up with clever ways to create a chic home on a budget. Read on to find out how to rehabilitate the frowzy furnishings you already have, and turn thrift store and alley finds into truly crave-worthy pieces.
Apartment Therapy
Don’t let the name Apartment Therapy throw you off the scent. This site has it all, from gardening to choosing a custom closet designer, but the real strength here is in the rethinking of old stuff. Yes, you too can repurpose old industrial lighting, refinish a table, convert a suitcase into a dog bed, or transform that hideous lamp into the stunning focal point of your living room. The projects here range from doable in an hour to no way, no how, but the photos are inspirational, and the writing is good. Each project is well outlined, although there aren’t explicit instructions on how to do them yourself. But you are savvy, and you can figure it out. Above all, the theme at Apartment Therapy is there shouldn’t be anything in your home that you don’t love, so fix it up, or donate it, but don’t give up on that pressboard entertainment center just yet: it’s got gobs of potential.
Design*Sponge
You could lose hours of your life perusing Design*Sponge’s before/after pages. This gorgeous blog is the creation of Grace Bonney, who believes that life should be filled with beauty. What started as a little design blog grew wildly popular, and she has since hired assistants and written a (fabulous) book. On this site, which is updated several times daily, you can find fixes for bad décor that range from $8 projects to $80,000 home overhauls. So start with the before/after pages, which you can narrow down by price, skill level, furniture type, and/or technique (i.e., upholstery or stenciling). Each project is accompanied by pretty good instructions, so if you’re feeling bold, go for an advanced one. Your thrift store excursions will never be the same after you see what can be done with some really icky looking pieces. And if the state of your entire house makes you sad, you can find some salvation for everything that’s ailing. Best of all, you can reward yourself for a job well done with a fancy cocktail from the recipes page—try the lemon and sage martini!
Darling Octopus
Local marvel Karen Guard has a real knack for finding hidden beauty in some unlikely places. The two best things about her furniture facelifts are that first, you can do them, and she’ll tell you how; and second, she doesn’t neglect a square inch. The insides of drawers and cabinets are painted in bright, contrasting colors, or lined with ornate wallpaper in a way that seems to say “surprise!” every time you open one. You’ll love the seeming effortlessness with which a scarred armoire can become a chic, self-contained home office, and a 1970s velour ottoman is revived as a midcentury modern piece. Reupholstering furniture does take some skill and patience, and Darling Octopus doesn’t deny it, but the results are just smashing, and you’ll be raring to give it a whirl.
The Centsational Girl
The Centsational Girl is the epitome of champagne taste on a beer budget, and she’s not ashamed to sing it from the top of the blogosphere. From choosing a paint color you’ll love to live with to faking the look of pricey lacquered nesting boxes with craft store cheapies, the Centsational Girl’s designer eye is set to soothing. She cleverly rethinks other people’s cast-offs, converting ugly headboards into message boards, hat racks, and daybeds in a way that is fresh and beachy looking and not kooky at all. She provides detailed accounts of each project, along with the exact brand, finish, and color of the paints she uses. While you are certainly welcome to choose any color palate you like, do take a moment to admire her choices, which elevate Ikea basics and Salvation Army eyesores into elegant, zen-inducing pieces that look seriously high end.
Richmond Thrifter
Sure, you could accuse us of being partial to local gals, but the fact is Richmond Thrifter is just that good. Projects on this page range from mild to wild: the latest project is a country coffee table stained to a moody, distressed black; a past project was the resurrection of a $35 Goodwill chest of drawers as a screaming hot pink dresser. Even though the Richmond Thrifter has a booth where she sells off her labors of love, she’s not stingy about telling you just how she attacks each job. The ongoing theme is clean lines, but each piece has a certain panache that let’s you know the Richmond Thrifter likes to have a good time.
Mr. Goodwill Hunting
Mr. Goodwill Hunting tells you one very, very important thing: revamping thrift store furniture is not just for girls! And when you get a load of the sexy Tom Ford-inspired wingback chairs blogger Rashon Carraway created from a couple of late 80’s horror shows, you’ll be glad to see the boys getting into the game. He’s a little heavier handed than the ladies in this field, but once you stop squealing from delight at the credenza in the New York living room photo, you’ll forgive him. Mr. Goodwill Hunting doesn’t restrict his reimagining to furniture either, you can buy his reimagined menswear on the site as well, guaranteeing that the debonair spirit you project on the streets is simply an extension of your oh-so-stylish self.
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