Our homes can look terribly bare at this time of year, with winter still running its course and no more decorative lights and ornaments to cheer up the gloom. A few creative touches can make a real difference though, so why not try your hand at interior design while you’re stuck indoors?
Before you start the ‘fun’ part of pulling your furniture to bits, setting down dust sheets and getting busy with a paint roller, there are some basic things to bear in mind. First, have a clear-out. There’s nothing quite so therapeutic as throwing out old junk, and while you’re sifting through the contents of each room, you may be able to set aside a few items you can use in your projects. Furniture items, for example, that you might want to give a lick of pain to, or completely deconstruct.
Next comes the inspiration stage. There is a huge home re-purposing community active all around the world at the moment, and a great place to get tips and ideas is the website Junkmarket Style. Here, you’ll see example of extreme recycling and functional craft projects, for example a table made from scrap cardboard or a vintage ladder turned into a set of shelves. To get started, here are a couple of ideas that can be used to transform many objects your home:
Fabric Decoupage
Fabric Decoupages is great not only because it’s so easy, effective, but also because it is usually completely reversible. If you decide that purple mushrooms are the ideal pattern for your bedroom cabinet one day then completely change your mind in a month’s time, all it takes is a bit of soapy water and some scrubbing, and your piece of furniture will be restored to its original form.
For the most long-lasting and professional-looking effects, you’ll need to sand down the area of your chosen piece of furniture that you want to cover in fabric. There’s a lovely example here of how an old night stand was transformed from being a sombre, dark-wood piece and given a much more cheery, welcoming and fun new look.
Button up
Buttons are easy to acquire in large quantities and make a wonderfully colourful effect when grouped together. One project that we’ve recently seen used to great effect in a home is large canvases covered in hundreds of mounted buttons. The can be arranged however you wish, and with the colour scheme of your choice. There’s a good example here of how one such piece of art was made, in this case with the buttons arranged to make a colourful grid. With a large enough canvas you can use the buttons like pixels, to create any image you want.
Image: Alancleaver_2000
