In the décor world, upcycling is the big trend at the moment. If you don’t know what upcycling is, it’s the concept of taking old items and either restoring them to their former glory or turning them into something new rather than buying a new item.

Upcycling and restoring is a budget friendly and environmentally conscious way to give your home a fresh new look, so let’s look at a few restoration projects you can crack on with at home.

Wooden Furniture

Generally, wooden furniture such as coffee tables, wardrobes and wooden chairs are incredibly easy to restore and you can easily give them a new lease of life with a bit of elbow grease in only an hour or so.

Simply take your tired wooden furniture and lightly sand the surface of it to remove any varnish, once you have sanded off the top layer, you can either paint the furniture with some wood paint or apply some wood varnish, after a few coats of paint or varnish, your wooden furniture should now look as good as new.

Window Blinds

Window blinds are another décor item that can be restored pretty easily depending on what type of blinds you have. Soft fabric blinds like roller blinds or roman blinds can be steam cleaned to give them a fresh look, but vertical blinds are by far the easiest to restore.

With a set of vertical blinds, you can remove the individual fabric slats from the blind’s headrail and replace them with new vertical blinds replacement slats to quickly give your vertical blinds a fresh new look, without having to completely replace them.

Kitchen Cabinets

Another item in your home that you can quickly restore is your kitchen cabinets, it can be incredibly expensive to outright replace them, but you can restore them incredibly cheaply if you know what you’re doing.

Much like the wooden furniture, you should start off by sanding them down then either giving them a few coats of paint or wood varnish. But once that’s done you can further compliment their new look by replacing the door handles on each cabinet, which will give them a completely new look without requiring you to smash any piggy banks.

Old Rugs

Rugs are a décor item that can be incredibly hardy, with some well-made rugs being in good shape for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, their longevity can work against them as that just means they have more time for dirt and dust to be rubbed into them, creating a dirty and dull look.

However, if you have a tired old rug, you can bring it back to life with a good clean. You can hand wash a rug, but that can be a long process, the best way to clean a rug is with a steam cleaner. After a quick steam clean your old rug should look like it’s brand new, with it’s colours being more vivid.

Lamps & Lights

If you have an old lamp or set of lights in your home, you may notice that they seem a bit out of place in rooms with a more modern décor set up, but you can easily modernise your lamps and lights at home without spending too much.

Firstly, you can upgrade the lightbulbs to modern bulbs which can shine in multiple colours, allowing you to alter the vibe of a room at the touch of a button. You can also replace the shades on lamps and ceiling lights with newer ones to create a more modern look.