Ikea, Homebase, Argos and Furniture Village has answered our generation’s need for inexpensive, flat pack furniture that will change a living room into the page of a style mag in a single day. But then, five years on, the fashion will have changed and now Sally is not happy with her Moroccan living room any longer now Sally craves contemporary chic. So what happens? She chucks it out and buys in new – now her Moroccan sofa is on top of a massive pile of rubble on a refuse mountain – what a waste. None of the furniture means one jot to Sally and her boyfriend, it was brought from a shed and most likely delivered by a young teenager at an ackward time. The only connection the couple have had with it is the shouting and swearing that went on whilst they hammered it together. Can you see where I’m going here? Is the process of getting new, throwing out, buying new, chucking out the right idea? Shouldn’t we have a kind of relationship with the things that makes up our home? It is the chair where you will help your one year old daughter open her presents on her first Christmas, or the special table top where she will tell you about her first day at school, & the pedestal dining table where you will serve the graduation dinner. Your home is a lot more than a contemporary dining suite, it shouldn’t be an array of inexpensive ply wood. It’s about collecting memories not about purchasing the latest style.
That doesn’t mean that you need to spend every weekend in second hand markets & car boot sales, having said that you can get some quality items and it is always a great day out! All I am suggesting is ditch the throw away culture and get quality pieces that are going to last. If you treat it properley it will last half a century, easily. That is at least 6 sets for most UK home owner so you can absolutely afford to fork out a bit more and have better materials. You don’t have to forget style either. First off purchase classic pieces that won’t go in and out of style, you can alter the entire look of a room just by painting a feature wall or adding extra features. You can even get creative with your furniture and modernise it on you own using some simple restoration approaches. Wood stain is the simplest technique to get and it can utterley transform the piece. You can give your table top a beautiful antique finish or brighten your side table to fit in with a French theme. It is fun, inexpensive and you connect with your home. Just make sure that when you are staining the table bases or stool bases you catch any drips! It might sound funny but really working with the material and making it your own will help you to get an emotional connection with it. This will also mean you will be less likely to simply chuck it away because it will have sentimental value.
