It is not unheard of that people sometimes become tired of their old furniture. When that happens, they start looking into ways they can replace the old pieces. But unless a piece is broken or damaged beyond repair, simply getting rid of it won’t make much sense.

If the aesthetic aspect of your furniture is the only thing preventing you from thoroughly enjoying and using it, luckily, there are things you can do to change that. Purchasing new furniture – although fun – can be quite pricey and wasteful. But if you take your old furniture and show it just some TLC, you’ll be left with beautiful custom pieces that will perfectly reflect your style and match your aesthetic. Here’s what you can do.

Reupholster for a new look

Upholstered furniture pieces are the easiest to refresh. Due to the fact that fabric makes for the biggest part of the upholstered furniture’s look, simply replacing it for something new will bring new shine to your furniture piece. No matter if we’re talking about chairs, ottomans or sofas, you can easily change the look of such pieces. The best part is that you can even do most of these yourself. For this type of project, you will need to find the right type of fabric and cut it to the appropriate shape. Cover your furniture piece with the new fabric and fix it in place with an upholstery staple gun. If the filling of your furniture needs to be replaced, do that as well before you fix the fabric in place.

Transform furniture with paint

Next, you can transform the way your furniture piece looks by simply treating it to a new coat of paint. The beauty of this type of transformation is that you can really let your creativity shine. You can choose to paint the entire piece in a single colour or you can play around with different hues and shades. You can also use an interesting stencil – or combine more of them – to create an elaborate design. Additionally, you can use a simple painter’s tape and create your own stencil if you’re not particularly fond of the store-bought ones. For this project, you’ll need a primer, paint, brushes and some type of a sealant to seal in and protect your design once you’re done.

Make your wooden furniture shine

If you’re quite satisfied with your wooden furniture but you’d simply like to make it shine a bit more, you can use a technique called wet sanding to achieve the desired look. If you’ve ever wondered what is wet sanding, it’s the process of using wet sandpaper to sand down your wooden furniture and thus make it appear shinier. Since the moisture makes wood particles stand up, when sanding it down with wet sandpaper, you will ensure that you get a much smoother finish. That’s why pieces of wooden furniture that were processed by using this technique appear much shinier. This sanding technique leaves the surface looking super smooth and polished.

Embellish your pieces

Moreover, you can use different things to embellish your furniture with. For instance, you can use upholstery nails in various colours and finishes to create an intricate design on your upholstered furniture. Alternatively, you can even pin them down to wooden furniture to form a pattern. Moreover, you can use contact paper or even fabric to change the look of some of your furniture pieces. Always wanted a marble tabletop? Get a roll of contact paper with the preferred marbled pattern and apply it to your tabletop. This hack is super easy and the results look absolutely stunning.

Use mirrors

In the end, you can choose to add an entirely new dimension to your old furniture pieces by enhancing their look with the use of mirrors. For instance, if you’re tired of your old bedside tables and you want to completely change the way they look, you can cover them in mirrors and thus give them a new shine. Alternatively, if you’ve broken a mirror, you can use the shards to create an interesting design on some other furniture piece. As an extra precaution, use protective gloves when glueing mirror or mirror shards to any surface. Also, if you’re using mirror shards, you may want to seal the design in clear epoxy to prevent accidentally injuring yourself.

These were just some of the ways you can make your old furniture pieces shine once more. Instead of getting rid of them and spending unnecessarily on new furniture, always check if you can make your old pieces look new first.

Contributor: Lana Hawkins