Woman makes hundreds upcycling furniture in home renovation

A woman has made almost £1.3K transforming old and unwanted furniture as part of her home renovation.

Tasmin Blaney, 28, who lives in Warrington, moved into her first home with her boyfriend last year and made the profit from upcycling three items of furniture.

The original price of the bedside drawers, filing cabinet and desk came to a total of £169.51, but after evaluation, the transformed final products are now worth £1,450.

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The fashion designer, who was made redundant at the start of the pandemic, said she "missed being creative every day" so decided to put her energy into renovating her home.

She told thinkmoney: "I’ve always been creative and used to upcycle old furniture my mum had in the house to give it a new life in my bedroom.

"I was a fashion designer but was made redundant at the start of the pandemic, so I decided to go into teaching maths (quite a different route).

"I’ve missed being creative every day at work and try to be as creative as possible in my home life as that’s what motivates me and keeps me going."

Thinkmoney reached out to Julia Anduiza, Founder of Shelff, a rental platform for interiors to predict the new resale prices of Tasmin’s projects.

Julia explained that by upcycling wood furniture with quality paint and modern patterns, you can make a great profit on old unwanted items by renewing them.

The set of bedside drawers cost £74.79 together, with resale price of up to £200 each and an overall profit of £325.21.

Tasmin said: "I found these on Gumtree for £10 for the two. I attached rattan webbing (£30 amazon) with a border of half dowel mouldings (£2.79 B&Q) to the front of each drawer, filled in the previous handle holes and replaced with gold hexagon pulls (£10 for 6 on amazon) and added hairpin furniture legs (£22 for 8 on amazon). I then used leftover black paint to paint it all."

The filing cabinet cost £56.06 to buy and upcycle, with a resale price of up to £300, making a profit of £243.94.

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Tasmin said: "This I found on Facebook marketplace for £5 and it was in a bad state, so I gave it a good clean up and attached half dowel mouldings to the front of each (£2.79 per 2.4m strip - I bought 14 strips), then painted the whole thing black and attached gold pull handles from Amazon which cost £12 for five."

The desk cost £20 and comes in at a resale price of up to £750, making a £730 profit.

Tasmin said: "For my office room, the table that was in there already was awkwardly shaped. I got this free from a family member who was throwing it away.

"So, I cut it into sections and glued it back together with dowels and wood glue. I repurposed leftover pieces of the wood flooring I had in the kitchen/dining room for the tabletop and attached two legs (£20 for 2 on amazon) in the corner, resting the other edges on the upcycled cabinets."

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Jonny Sabinsky, Head of Communications at thinkmoney, said: "Clearing out your home and selling unwanted items is always a great way to make some extra cash.

"But, what we love about upcycling is that you can make a rather hefty profit by giving your furniture a new life.

"With a quick sand down, a lick of paint and some extra trending accessories, you have yourself a new hobby, as well as minimising the volume of unwanted materials and the waste being sent to landfill each year."

Tasmin also used one tin of black paint across all three projects costing a total of £18.66.

Overall, she spent £169.51 thrifting and upcycling her furniture but made a whopping potential profit of £1,299.15 when she comes to sell these in the future.

An Instagram account to document the progress of Tasmin's first home renovation. To find out more, click here.

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