For many of us, the idea of buying custom, well-made furniture is still a dream. We have to go to the high street shops (or the Swedish flat pack shop in the suburbs) to furnish our homes with the chairs, bookcases, cabinets, beds and wardrobes we all need.
Just because we can’t afford to buy custom designer furniture doesn’t mean we have to accept the look of the high street offerings, though. Below are seven ways we can customise cheap furniture to get the look we want for a fraction of the price.
Paint it.
This is Customisation 101. You can buy a piece of wood furniture and make it whatever shade you want. That is customisation at its most basic.
But the cheapest furniture often comes coated in a plastic-like veneer, so in order to customise that, you will have to get sandpaper and specific primer paint. Sand down the surface, so that the paint has something to grip on to. Depending on the material, you may need to wear a mask to keep yourself from breathing in harmful chemicals. Clean off the dust, and paint a primer that is designed for the material that coats the furniture. Paint another coat of primer if the original colour of the item is dark or if you have a bright paint colour. The double coating of primer will really make the bright paint pop. Wait for the primer coats to dry. Finally, paint the colour of your choice over the primer. With that, you will have instantly changed the look of your furniture, with very little cost or effort.
Change the legs, knobs or other bits on it.
Painting is just the tip of the iceberg of ways to customise cheap furniture. You can also add and replace certain elements for a completely different feel. Change the knobs on cabinets for a personalised look. Change the legs on a simple sofa to make it more retro. Add strips of decorative moulding, painted to match or nicely contrast with your furniture, to create a unique texture on your storage.
Reupholster it.
Reupholstering can be kind of expensive if you can’t do it yourself, but it will make your furniture look even more expensive than that. Of course, you can do it yourself if you are reupholstering something sturdy, like a bookcase or cabinet doors. All you have to do is cut the fabric to the right size and glue it on.
You can also wrap it around the piece and secure it to the back with staples or nails, if you won’t ever see the back of the piece. That requires a bit more fabric and some careful folding, but it can be done quickly and easily.
Change the texture on it.
If you want to customise cheap furniture that is made of untreated wood, you can give it a distressed look that will fit in with industrial, shabby chic or other décors. Simply beat the surface with a hammer, scrape a screwdriver across it and do whatever else to dent and scratch the wood randomly. Then stain the wood, so the dents and scrapes show up nicely. This will make your cheap wood furniture look hard-wearing and nicely aged, which suggests a quality of craftsmanship that it may not actually have.
Add stickers and other decals to it.
One of the fastest, easiest ways to customise cheap furniture is simply to put stickers and other decals on it. Thanks to the new craze for decals of all kinds, you can peel and stick your way to customised furniture. If you have a chest of drawers, for example, you could put a wall decal across the front, cut to allow the drawers to move. You could get circle stickers, cut them in half and put them in a row to give a geometric bunting effect. You could even put a bird on it to make it look like it came straight from an Etsy craftsperson.
Decoupage it.
Decoupaging is like putting a sticker on, except you can use any kind of printed material, and you have to apply the adhesive yourself. Get a bottle of decoupaging glue like Modge Podge, in whichever finish you like, and gather the patterns or images you want to use. You can use magazine photos, thin fabric or even paper napkins to create the look you want. Cut out the bits you want to use, and place them on the furniture. Seal with the decoupaging glue, and before it has set, smooth out any air bubbles. With that, you will have a customised surface that will last for years and years.
Put it in a different context.
This “customisation” requires no extra effort but lots of imaginative thinking. Essentially, you need to see what else the product could be. Some bookcases can be turned on their sides and covered with cushions to create seating with storage underneath. Kitchen cabinets can be hung low on a wall in a living room to create “floating” credenzas. You can shorten some stools’ legs to create a minimal bedside table. Using pieces in unique ways can turn a forgettable piece of furniture into a talking point, which is one of the best ways to make it seem like it was made just for your home.
These are just seven ways you can customise cheap furniture and make it look much more expensive. Which ones are you keen to try? What other ways do you customise cheap furniture?
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