Introduction
Sometimes you get furniture in your home that wasn’t chosen by you. This is a common occurrence when you have inherited furniture. One option is to search for “furniture repair near me” and hire professionals to fix it for you. Otherwise, you can get your inherited furniture refreshed in numerous ways. Let’s check out how you can do that.
The Process
1. Repurposing or relocating – While an inherited table may seem useless since you have a desk, dining table, and coffee desk, it can be made useful with a new identity. You just need to assign a new job to that piece of furniture. It can be something simple like using an old dining chair as a desk chair or using an old parlor seat as a new banquette bench. If there’s a contrasting look, it adds a bit of spark to the overall aesthetics.
On the other hand, you can make the old furniture useful with a more complex approach. For instance, if you have a bedroom suite, but don’t have the space for it, you can divide the components. The bed can go in the guest bedroom while the chest can be used for storage in your own room. Saw down an old sewing table and it can become a quirky little side table beside your bed. You can even make it into a bar cart or a mini desk. The same goes for that old giant plant stand. You can use it as a small table beside the accent chair.
2. Refinish or paint – Sometimes the simplest effort can bring a big change. Your old inheritance furniture and even new pieces of furniture can drastically change after being refinished or repainted. People go for this option to bring out the beauty from old yet perfectly functional pieces of inheritance furniture. You can also do it to breathe new life into your existing furniture.
For instance, you can repurpose or repaint an old cabinet into a brand-new TV stand. When you refinish it with wood stain, it would have a completely different character and exude a warm and inviting tone. On the other hand, if you have a white wall, you can make the cabinet pop out by painting it bright cherry red.
You can also mix up paint and stain to make old furniture match your style. For instance, if you got a gorgeous dining set as inheritance, you could choose to refinish the table with a light finish and bring contrast by painting the chairs with a charcoal color. Finally, you can give the set a matte finish to stick to modern aesthetics.
The thing about repainting or refinishing old furniture is that you can always go back. For instance, if you don’t like the wood tone of your newly refinished inheritance furniture, you can simply restrain it or paint it to match with the overall decor of the room. There’s no need to feel guilty about painting “good furniture”. Those layers can always be stripped away and the person who left that furniture would be glad that you’ve found such an incredible way to use their old furniture.
3. Change hardware or other components – Let’s say you love the minimalist style and don’t want a lot of flashy changes to an ornate piece of inheritance furniture. In that case, it’s best to update that furniture piece by changing the legs, hardware, knobs, and other such components. Apart from changing the hardware, painting over the furniture with a non-invasive and neutral color can work wonders for the furniture piece.
If you get an old country-style cabinet with round knobs, you can make a similar change. Just change the hardware with sleek chrome handles and paint over the furniture piece with a matte black tone. It would look like a brand-new piece of furniture and will also conform to your sense of style.
Moreover, you can buy overlays for your old furniture. They are like soft overlays that can be attached to walls or furniture pieces to completely change their look. You can change your old wooden cabinet to look like a modern piece by getting aluminum sheeting or other such metal overlays. You can find all kinds of overlays at hardware stores and online stores. This way you can change the old, dated look of inheritance furniture into something modern without painting or staining it.
There are other components you can add or remove to change the look of your inheritance furniture. If you hate the skirted look of your sofa or armchair, you can simply remove them. The same goes for cabinets and dressers with scalloped wood bottoms. You can also add them if your home decor has a feminine theme.
4. Reupholster – People usually don’t opt for this option since it’s more expensive and a lot of extra work if you’re refreshing the furniture yourself. However, reupholstering produces marvelous results. Reupholstering old furniture doesn’t just change its look, but completely changes the era the old furniture belonged to.
For instance, if you have an old Victorian-style sofa with too many flowery patterns, you can transform it with upholstering and refinishing certain surfaces. You can reupholster the couch with a neutral light gray tone fabric while the exposed wood can be finished with a light-colored wood stain to complement the gray.
You can also go the other way around and re-upholster an old chair with bright and colorful patterned fabric. With reupholstering you have a lot of room for experimenting. You can buy a lot of sample pieces with different shades and patterns and slowly figure out which one would look best on the furniture and would match the overall decor of the room.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are innumerable ways of refreshing your inherited furniture. From repurposing to refinishing and even reupholstering it according to your needs. If you’re confident enough, you can DIY your inherited furniture or search for “furniture repair near me” and hire professionals to bring your vision to life.
