The idea of revamping your interior décor can get you fired up… until you look at the price for just a new rug and find that your fire has burnt down to cinders. Still, you can revamp your interior without redoing everything. Just freshening up your furniture is enough to make your interior look new. You may be wondering, though, isn’t buying a whole lot of new furniture just as expensive? Fear not, you wise yet frugal homeowner. You can make your furniture look just like new with these DIY projects to revamp your furniture.
Refinish Wood Furniture
Old wood furniture can be eye-catching or an eyesore depending on the love they get. Before kicking that old table, dresser, or bureau to the curb, give it a closer look and see if maybe it’s simply time to refinish it. Stripping the furniture of its old finish, sanding it with a power sander, and putting on a fresh coat of finish takes a bit of elbow grease, but your wood will look brand new when you’re done.
Slap on a Fresh Coat of Paint
So maybe refinishing the wood was a little too intensive for you (it’s ok, power tools scare me, too). You can still make your furniture look new with a fresh coat of paint. You will still want to do a little sanding, but you can stick to sandpaper this time and wash the piece down with a wet rag. You will also want to sand between the layers of primer and each coat of paint. This is a project you can even get the kids in on!
Reupholster Your Pieces
Reupholstering furniture is almost like the paradox of grandfather’s axe. “My grandfather had an axe. When my father inherited it, he had to replace the handle. When I inherited it, I had to replace the head. Is it still grandfather’s axe?” Without diving into an existential crisis over DIY projects to revamp your furniture, what I will say is that reupholstering furniture is like that axe. Without buying a whole new furniture piece, you’ll have something new. Reupholstering furniture is great because you get to pick a whole new color scheme or pattern for the furniture as well. Be aware that you will need some sewing know-how for this project.
Try Out Upcycling
Let’s say your furniture is genuinely broken or you can’t use it anymore. Maybe you have a bookshelf that’s missing a shelf, a table with a broken leg, or a kids’ set of drawers that are too short. If you’re really handy, these old pieces can become brand-new pieces elsewhere in your house. For example, you could knock the rest of the shelves out of that bookshelf, screw in some new hooks, and have a place to hang jackets for your mudroom. If you were fortunate enough to have a broken table and old drawers at the same time, you could combine them to make a new desk. All you need is a little elbow grease and ingenuity.
