It seems today that we live in a disposable society, everything from clothes to electronics are now replaced instead of patched and repaired. The news shows us every day, the mountains of unrecyclable waste there are and you can’t escape the constant mantra of how much more we need to do to help our environment, by making a greater effort to recycle and re use. It’s so easy to replace something we don’t love or think we don’t have a need for anymore. We know about recycling our rubbish, we all have lots of different bins for different things but that’s just general household waste. What about other bits and pieces in your home? That old, ‘orange’ pine bookcase? Or the big, dark wood sideboard you inherited from Great Aunt Agatha that is great for hiding away all sorts of family detritus but overpowers your entire lounge with its….well…. dark, slightly foreboding presence?

What do you do with those? You ship it out to the dump and you buy something new.

We are all guilty of doing this at some point! But did you know that 800,000 tonnes of furniture goes to landfill each year in the UK alone? More surprisingly, and quite scarily, a massive 42% of this is completely reusable.

So what can we do to help? Fear not! For there is a fun solution to saving some of it from winging its way to landfill, an easy way to update your home and hang on to useful but outdated, tired looking furniture.

Paint it!

It’s far easier than you would think and here at Goosepig Interiors it’s what we spend our days doing. Giving old, tired furniture a new lease of life, making it look happy and re loved again.

If you have a beautiful, newly decorated lounge in modern shades, Great Aunt Aggie’s sideboard may look rather imposing in it, but it’s darn handy for storage too so why get rid of it? Something as simple as changing the handles can instantly update it but with a spare weekend (or less!) some paint and some know how, it can be transformed into a real statement piece. You can make it blend in or stand out, the choice is yours and the possibilities are endless. There are so many craftsman made pieces of furniture out there, far more solid than some of the more modern items available and, with a bit of imagination can go on serving their purpose for years and years. This stuff was built to last!
Don’t be scared to have a go, come in and see us, advice is always free! If you aren’t feeling confident enough to do it yourself , commission us to do it for you or maybe pop along to one of our regular workshops to get the basic skills you need to get going!

Save our planet a little piece at a time, save the orange pine!

Guest blog brought to you by Jayne at Goosepig. For more informaiton visit Jayne at The Old Cowshed, Foxholes Farm, London Road, Hertford, SG13 7NT