Six reasons why upcycling furniture is better than buying new

It’s exciting isn’t it, when you start to think about redecorating your home, or maybe you’re in the process of buying a house and are in the throws of planning where furniture will sit and the colour scheme of your new home. Exciting and stressful. Especially if it’s the latter of the two!

It’s easy to take a trip to a retail park and wander around the big chain stores sitting on sofas or measuring up the chest of drawers for your new bedroom to see if they fit. For years and years we’ve been programmed to buy new, after all, it’s hard to escape the adverts for bank holiday sales, or dirt cheap bargains on some unethical shopping app or other, so why would we think any other way? Why wouldn’t we just go out and buy something new, mass produced and generic?

Well, I’m here to say you don’t have to, or need to for that matter. You don’t have to buy brand new, whether you have an abundance of furniture already or not, new does not have to be the only answer. The key is to Reduce. Reuse. Refurbish. Reduce what you buy. Reuse and refurbish what you already have.

Here are 6 reasons why furniture upcycling is such a big passion of ours at Reduce. Reuse. Refurbish:

• It can save you money. Okay, so if you’re buying the cheapest, poorest quality furniture, then this might not be true. But if you’re in the market for good quality furniture, then painting what you already have, or searching for something second hand and upcycling it can save you money. Whether you choose to do it yourself, or look for a business like ours to paint it for you, that’s up to you. But solid wood furniture doesn’t come cheap when it’s brand new. Plus, if you already own the furniture, whether it’s the finest quality solid wood, or came flat packed to your door, then you’ve already forked out the pennies for it and can save yourself the extra cost by refurbishing what you own already.
• If it fits perfectly, keep it. Orange pine is a thing of the past, for sure. But if you already own the perfect bookcase, and can’t stand how it looks, why not paint it? You know it works in the space, so you can save yourself time trying to find an ideal replacement by changing how your current furniture looks. Not convinced it’ll work for you? Drop us a message and we can discuss your concerns.
• You get to choose your colour, and can be as safe or as daring as you like. You don’t get to do that as easily with brand new furniture. Whether you do it yourself, or commission us (or others locally to you) to paint it for you, the design is yours. You get to choose the colour, you get to choose the style and it will be entirely unique to you. What’s not to love about that? Check out our painted furniture for inspiration here.

• Depending on the level of investment you’re choosing to spend, new is not always better quality. Especially if your furniture comes flat packed. You can bet your bottom dollar it will be outlived by much older furniture. We’ve got a mix of new and old/second hand furniture in our home, just like the majority of homes I’m sure, and the new flat packed furniture is by far the lower quality of the lot. Whereas the old, solid pieces of furniture, withstand the day to day use, without us worrying about them breaking quite as much.
• By painting what you have, you are 100% helping to reduce the volume of furniture that is sent to landfill each year. In 2018, researchers estimated that 22 million pieces of furniture are sent to landfill each year in the UK*! Shocking right? So if you painted a piece of furniture instead of parting with it, you’re reducing that number by one. Imagine, if everybody did this with one piece of furniture, that number would be significantly reduced. (*If you want more stats - here's the article this is from)
• Furniture tells a story. It might not always be a story you know, but second hand furniture has had a life, and can have another life, and another, over and over. This is one of my favourite parts of upcycling furniture for customers. Learning the story behind the furniture reminds me how precious it can be, and how important it is to keep the story going. Whether that’s a handmade cabinet made by somebody’s grandfather, or a chair that was reupholstered with bus seat fabric by someone’s mother, each piece of furniture deserves another chapter to its story. It creates a lovely talking point when your furniture has been in the family for generations. Even if it doesn’t look how it did when it was first brought, the memories stay with it.

So there you are, six reasons why Reduce. Reuse. Refurbish think painting furniture is better than buying completely new. Not a painter yourself? Then don’t worry, we can help if you’re in the Durham area of the UK. All you need to do is send us a message enquiring about us painting your furniture and we can take it from there. Not local to us? Then please take a look online and I’m sure you’ll find a business similar to ours that can help you refurbish your furniture.