Monday, 5 May 2014

Makeover Magic

What happens when stuff gets old...do you throw it out? Sometimes yes if it's broken, that's the best thing to do. What if an item has still got life in it and it's just a bit tired or dated? I think we all feel these days that we should try and reuse or recycle it. There are lots of ways to reuse, you can give things away through Freegle and Freecycle, you can recycle if it is made of a recycleable material or you can "upcycle"...which means to change it and make it better than it was.

The painted revolution has made many of us think again about throwing useful things out - even an old bike can get painted turquoise and popped in the garden as a feature - this one aint too shabby and is pretty chic in my opinion.....recycling it took not much effort as you will see from the link below.




pop over to I Love That Junk to see how this was achieved

So if we love saving the small stuff, why do we throw the big stuff......clever paint finishes can turn something like this from ebay




To this at Carte Blanche Studios and you can learn how this was done on our  



But people are ready to throw out much bigger purchases, like a full blown kitchen, even a well designed one. Lucky for us a few people who see the opportunity to save money and create something new and fresh from the old  

This couple could see that opportunity and with a little colour help and a lot of labour we gave them a totally new space.

This is what they had - a really high quality well designed kitchen that used the space well. Not everyone has as good quality cabinetry as this but often there are very few designs that can be executed in someone's space and if you have solid units  and a good layout, why go through the upheaval and cost of a new kitchen


 and this is what we left them with. Now we didn't manage this alone - we did it with the help of our lovely friend and colleague Andrew Fizpatrick the most laid back, easy to work with, super cool cabinet maker and kitchen maker that I have worked with ever (testament is I've worked with him for 17 years!!!). He made new doors, tightened hinges and we got going with the paintwork.




A fresh new space!!!

Now none of this is rocket science but it is a LOT of work and not everyone has time to do it themselves - you can give us a call or drop us an email with images and we'll send you a price. Alternatively come on one of our classes and learn how to do it yourself.