Nearly new wood – Page 12 – The Interior DIYer

Alex - The Interior DIYer November 5, 2014 Uncategorized

Nearly new wood challenge!

Growing up in Canada, I was very eco-conscious. I think it was down to a mix of playing in woods all year, living in a town that had a very good recycling program and both of my parents being very thrifty so we always made the most out of what we had.

It’s not something I talk about much here on my blog, but I have a borderline obsessive level of consciousness when it comes to the environment. Almost everything I do, I think about the environmental impact. I cycle on my lady bicycle everywhere, I recycle within an inch of my life, and I try to buy mostly from second hand stores to attempt to reduce the demand on mass production.

A couple of months ago I finished reading Sophie Armoruso’s #GirlBoss, and one specific line of hers really struck a cord with how I felt –

” … I refused to buy new wood … “

She was talking about her extreme hippy lifestyle when she was younger and capitalism’s disregard for sustainability, but it really hit home. In fact, I saw it as a bit of a challenge.

So here’s where I would like to challenge you. If you’re down with it, obv. The next time you’re on the lookout for a new piece of furniture, whether it be a bedside table, a desk, a chair or a coffee table, I challenge you to go down the nearly new route to help contribute a little bit less to the demand.

Not buying new wood is something I’ve done many times because I’m pretty passionate about the thrill that comes with finding a one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture. In recent weeks I sold our IKEA desk for a second hand mahogany desk on a local website [as beautiful as IKEA is, I need a bit less obvious-IKEA in my life]. I’ve also found some pretty decent pieces online on Freecycle that we still use in our home today. Albeit repainted, but the bedside table in our spare bedroom is a fine example [above].

My main go-to for finding second hand pieces is of course charity shops. I found these wooden pencils yesterday for next to nothing, which will be a perfect accent for my broseph’s Canadian man cave office.

I’m already a not-so-shy dumpster diver. Case in point – the bar stool I rescued from the skip in our underground car park at the beginning of this year. Speaking of, there’s a brand new ottoman down there that I spotted this morning, and I can’t wait to rescue it.

So there you go. There are lots of alternative avenues to take when it comes to buying wood. It’s something I feel very strongly about and I hope you too will join me in this challenge in whatever way you can, no matter how small, to see if you can buy a little bit less new wood.

Explore local charity shops, second hand sites [such as Freecycle or Adverts.ie], reclaimed wood from a nearby salvage yard or even casting a glimpse over your local skip. I guarantee the alternative will not only be cheaper on your pocket, but you’ll also be buying exclusive pieces. How posh does that sound?

And by all means please share your nearly new pieces by using the hashtag #NearlyNewWood or linking to your favourite nearly new piece in the comments below! And what would really make me squee is if going forward, you share what nearly new piece you bought in stead of brand new. Tree huggers unite.

OR IF YOU PREFER THE ABOVE BADGE IN CODE FORM …

Alex - The Interior DIYer October 15, 2014 Uncategorized

Guest bedroom bedside table – updates

Have you ever decorated part of your home and once it was finished, it didn’t exactly look better? Yeah, that happens around here more often than I’d like to admit.

Case in point, our spare bedroom earlier this year [below]. I painted our bedside table black and accessorized it with pieces I wasn’t particularly fond of and it was all just BLEUH. Everything needed a bit of an upgrade, so on Monday night I repainted the bedside table with leftover Dulux Exterior SatinWood ‘iron clad’ paint that I used on our living room stools. This paint is meant for front doors, but it works like an absolute dream on furniture.

Upgrade step 1: complete! Now onto step 2: in keeping with my current a bit less IKEA phase [ie – our new old desk], the next step was to find a replacement lamp for the IKEA lamp we had. Yesterday I took to my well-worn Dublin charity shop route and I spotted this absolutely lush gold lamp in Second Abbey …

Phwoar. Isn’t it well lush? I headed to Dunnes Stores and picked up a small black pleated lamp shade to bring it out of the early 90’s, and I’ve got to say, I’m ridiculously pleased with how it turned out. Just LOOK at it …

All shiny and gold and pretty. I next upgraded our rescue kit for unexpected guests box [psst – you can also see what the bedside table originally looked like in that post]. I had a spare white KASSET box from my DIY holiday memory boxes, so I added the contents of the rescue kit to the slightly fancier box and added an old school Dymo Omega label to balance out all the fancy. And damn straight, I am mixing gold and silver.

And last but not least, I decided to jazz up the bedside table by doing something I almost never do – I bought flowers. I love flowers in our home so I don’t really know why I’m always hesitant to buy them. I will admit part of me thinks it’s a bit of a waste of money. I know that sounds harsh. I tried to curb my opinion by buying these pretty pink roses which were reduced yet absolutely perfect [WINNING]. I trimmed them into one of our gold tumblers, et voila.

When I showed husband the new getup in the spare bedroom, the first thing he said was “are you sure you want to keep that lamp there? It’s really nice and we’ll never see it in the spare bedroom … “. He makes a good point. Yes, he may be critiquing my styling placement, but I’ll focus more so on the fact that he thinks I made a kick-ass Frankenstein lamp 🙂 xx A

Alex - The Interior DIYer August 1, 2014 Uncategorized

Step stool saga

Last week I wrote about my new step stool combo and how I wanted to coordinate my BEKVAM stool with my salvaged skip stool in a way that would fit in with our living room a little better. To give you some history, long ago I found this broken bar stool in a skip, cleaned it up and repainted the top black. When I bought our new BEKVAM stool a couple of weeks ago, I saw their potential and was prompted to give them both a little makeover.

I did a lot of head scratching and googleing of IKEA hacks and I eventually decided to paint them light grey with black dip-dye legs. I like the dip-dye trend that all the cool people are trying out these days so I thought I’d try it for myself. And it looked meh.

There are a couple of factors to consider here –

You can’t really tell from the above picture, but our / our landlords 10-year-old IKEA shelving is what I like to call IKEA ‘white‘. Which in fact is not white. Hence the italics and quotation marks. The shelves are a light shade of cream. So anything that isn’t progressively more yellow than them looks blue. Meaning, the light grey paint on the stools looks blue in front of the yellow, I mean white, shelves.
The grey just wasn’t dark enough so while clashing with the shelves, the stools also blended into the background as well. Do you remember those eye puzzle posters that were huge in the 90’s? You’d stare at them and then all of a sudden a 3D image would pop out? That’s what happened to my stools when they were this colour. You didn’t really see them but once you do, you feel like reality has been altered ever so slightly. Not what I was going for.

So back to the drawing board. I knew I wanted to go darker, but I didn’t want to go black. I went to my local hardware store, saw the Dulux Exterior SatinWood paint in ‘iron clad’ [sorry, no direct linkage available], and I couldn’t resist trying it out. Yes, it’s paint meant for front doors and the likes but I’ve got to say, this paint is kind of amazing.

A couple of you had asked what I was hoping to use our new BEKVAM stool for. It’s really just to replace something else. I used to have a miniature chest in that spot [which you can see here] which as a secondary function housed all my extra yarn. I was getting tired of it and wanted something fresher, so I upgraded to the BEKVAM stool. “What an odd place to have a stool / miniature chest“, I hear you say. Well I haven’t let you in on its primary function as it’s there for one reason. Well, for two furry reasons. See that pinkish-lilac cushion up in our shelves? That’s one of Juniper and Toshi’s favourite cubbies and in order for them to climb into it, they need some assistance …

Yep. I have a stool for our cats. I of course actually use the step stool, but while it’s not being used by humans, our cats get full use of it. p.s. I can’t handle how cute and curious Juniper looks in this picture. It’s like she’s inspecting my painting skills.

I’m so glad I used this paint as it dries so fast. I was able to paint two coats on both stools in an hour and that’s including drying time. They have a lovely satin finish and aren’t tacky to the touch like some paint can be. In fact, I was so enthusiastic that I repainted our entire bedroom dresser in it this morning. From start to finish with two coats of paint and dry within an hour. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.

I know this makeover isn’t a monumental change to our living room, but it’s a little step. xx A