For anyone with the winter blahs who has been looking around their house and seeing everything that’s wrong with it rather than right, you can easily and inexpensively add a little sparkle. I recently went shopping in my own home and jazzed up my kitchen using my own stuff.
It’s certainly not a new concept, especially in these green times. But it was an easy fix to a tired out kitchen and made a huge difference in the look and feel of the room.
You don’t have to spend a small fortune to snazzy things up a bit. I had unused wallpaper just sitting around for about a year, and a really pretty hanging lamp that I had bought about the same time, when I initially planned on a mini kitchen re-do that never happened.
Along with some paint in my basement collecting dust, and a framed, signed, gorgeous and colorful Save the Earth poster by Peter Max that I found in perfect condition at a church sale a couple years back for $5 (have seen it online for sale for as high as $950), I brought color and oomph back to my kitchen. The only thing I bought were a couple of boxes of white subway tiles for a new backsplash, which cost about $120.
But if you’re not the kind of person who has things just lying around, hit your local resale shops, where great treasures can be found. Buy some inexpensive, discounted fabric and gussy up your toss pillows or get a few new ones. Change out your picture frames. A new area rug, lamp or furniture piece can work wonders.
Mike Blaha, owner of Mike’s Furniture Repair in Galewood, has been in the furniture repair and restoration business for about 18 years. He said the hottest restoration trend right now is turning an old armoire into a liquor cabinet by adding pullout shelves and a spot for wine glasses. Blaha is currently restoring an old workman’s bench, turning it into a dining room table.
“Being such a wasteful society, it’s easier to throw something away and buy something new,” said Blaha. But why do that, he asked, when you can just reupholster and alter the frame and you have yourself something new and spiffy?
Seems more and more folks are reusing and repurposing, said Sally Stovall, co-founder and director of Green Community Connections, an organization working to build a sustainable future in the Oak Park/River Forest area.
“I think definitely people are, especially the younger generation like my kids in their 30s, are definitely shopping at home and reusing. … There’s the whole rise of second-hand stores,” said Stovall, who also runs the annual One Earth Film Fest, which uses film to educate, connect and activate audiences around sustainability issues and solutions. “And there’s a big movement around de-cluttering. … When we do things like that, we find things we can use or other people can.”
“Remove, recycle, and restore,” is the motto at ReBound Chicago, which comes in, removes your junk, and brings it to a central processing warehouse in North Austin where it’s separated for donations, resale and garbage.
Owner Adrian Enochian said he repurposes whatever he can. Some people toss out aesthetically nice pieces that are trashed but just need a little TLC such as reupholstering to bring them back to life, he said.
“If I think it can be repurposed, I take it to designers and upholsters and see what they can do,” said Enochian, who then sells the newly done chair, couch or whatever the case may be.
He said he has seen an “upsurge” in interest in repurposed furniture, which people can customize with their color and design of choice. Besides that, “it has quality, they can buy it at a reasonable price, and if they went to Crate and Barrel or Williams Sonoma, it would cost four times more,” said Enochian.
Meanwhile, I still need to do a few things in my kitchen, but the hardest part is finished and the best part is, it cost me very little and I was green in the process. My husband calls me a hoarder, but I call myself a savvy money saver and dedicated earth hugger.
Felicia Dechter is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.