Upscaling furniture

[rebel rebel]

Evening,

I've been looking for some living room furniture for ages. Sideboards, cupboard and new TV unit. But can never find anything I like, or if I do it's normally way too expensive £600+ Which I find unacceptable.
So have now decided to buy something and paint it (upscale) myself. I'm leaning more towards spraying or painting something in a blue eggshell or teal, and then put a pattern on it.

Does anyone else here do this? I would like to see some examples.

Would also like to know of any places that sell cheap second hand furniture, I obviously know there's Gumtree, eBay Preloved..

 

[rebel rebel]

I'm in Southend. We have a few charity shops that sell furniture, but it's like the good stuff has been sold already.

Retro or mid-century stuff is what i'm after. I guess hipster shops are gonna be where it's at, although i'd like to get to it before its been painted, as I'd like to do that myself.

Etsy has loads of good stuff, but it's been painted and then trebled in price.

 

[rebel rebel]

Here's some good examples.

 

[rebel rebel]

Yeah that place looks good, I'd need to grow a beard and purchase a scooter before going in there though.

I just found a sideboard for £85 on gumtree, same town as me as well. So I've sent him a message regarding delivery. Could be the blank canvas I need.

 

[rebel rebel]

I recall a couple of places I remember from when I lived in Southend.
Just looked them up... Les & Gary's and Des & Barry's, both on London Road, Westcliff.

May be worth a look?

Yeah Les and Gary's is hilarious, they have the Only Fools & Horses 3 wheeler on their roof. Last time I went in the stuff was expensive for what it was.

Des And Barrys is near that apparently, I've never noticed it before.

I'll check them both out.

 

[rebel rebel]

N/m

Haha did you google it and see upscaling can mean make something better?

 

[rebel rebel]

I've been looking at the chalk paint. It's good for creating that shabby chic look. I would maybe do white chalk with some blue flecks in.

I take it your wife enjoyed the process?

 

[rebel rebel]

Yeah she really did, our bedside cabinets were done in an ivory colour but she did the whole thing so it looks quite smart, we didn't distress any of it as the shabby chic didn't really fit with the rest of the bedroom.

They were done 5 maybe 6 years ago and still look great today.

Excellent! My mother bought a shabby display cabinet about 10 years ago, then paid to have it restored, totally not understanding the whole point of it.

Wayfair isn't too bad if you don't mind a big hunt through thousands of items, this is our tv stand. Although sure we only paid £250

https://www.wayfair.co.uk/furniture/pdp/world-menagerie-tejas-tv-stand-for-tvs-up-to-70-bmh1645.html

Yeah I browse on Wayfair all the time, I want to avoid those prices though. Much rather buy something half the price and paint it myself.

It's something I've done on my coffee table - just because I didnt fancy paying a bunch for one. I picked one up from a charity shop for £15,sanded it down and put some new paint on it.

Before:

Spoiler

After:

Spoiler

That's very nice, I have a dark wood console table that I will sand and paint white.

 

[rebel rebel]

I was thinking your goal was to make furniture larger...

It’s up-cycling isn’t it?

Enough pedantry, hope you have a good result. Its great to be able to reuse and customise furniture.

Yeah I should have said up cycling. But if you Google upscaling you get the same stuff come up. And the definition says.. the action of increasing the size or improving the quality of something. So technically not a massive **** up.