To think that a lot of 'upcycling' is bollocks?

[thereareflowersinmygarden]

Lots of it on Facebook selling sites.

People get a lovely old, wooden piece of furniture, slap some white paint on it and think they've actually done a good thing. Often, they've taken a beautiful 1930's walnut sideboard or such like, and vandalised it.

Just why? Why can't these people get a useful hobby?

I think Annie Sloan was the original chalk paint, there are lots of chalk paints out there now. She has been around a good few years. I use the paint because you don’t need to prime the surface you are using it on and it can be layered up and sanded easily. I actually don’t like the distressed finish though so use it more for the ease of it. I get a buzz from buying something crap in a charity shop and transforming it. I must do a decent job for people to buy it. Haven’t done it for ages though

Well this thread took a turn for the bonkers!

Completely crackers...

Completely crackers...

You ableist cow. 🐮

Or are you just trying to deflect the subject away from furniture onto food?

I like Annie Sloan paint. My mantlepiece is painted in it. It was an awful, to me, orange laquered pine which dominated the room and now it blends in nicely.

Is that a baby blue? Looks lovely. And I ❤ the print above it.

Thank you. I think (it's about 7 years since i did it)it may be sage green?
I love the print too. It's from etsy and a group of 4 us who have been friends for a long time all have it. When we got it we all had hair similar in colour to the picture.

Cheese and crackers, with pickles?

I got a TV cabinet from a charity shop for a tenner, primed and painted it and I love it. It fits the living room and works for us.

I also bought a sewing cabinet from eBay for cheap, primed and painted it and it looks like a bag of shit and will likely go to the tip sometime soon because its ugly as fuck, but it would have gone there anyway without me wasting my money and time painting it.
You win some, you lose some.

What I do object to is people 'upcycling' and charging ridiculous prices for them.

There's a programme I've seen on tv where a woman raids the local tip and then gives what she finds to 'designers' who upcycle and sell on the goods. They sell these things for hundreds and hundreds of pounds!!
Like an old wooden dining chair painted black with the bottom of the legs painted in various garish colours went for over £300!
An old suitcase turned on its side, shelves put in and put onto legs, 700 quid!! Piss off!

Shabby chic is 725% utter bollocks.

I agree that a lot of amateur Facebook type upcycling is largely bobbins, but DF has a friend whose dad is a tailor. He works with Oxfam to source old tweed jackets which he reconditions and sells on. They are gorgeous.

So sick of seeing chalk paint.

I've got antique pine cabinets that have been chalk painted (not by me); strikes me that pine was cheap over a century ago and is cheap now so I can't see the vandalism in that.

Not so keen on painting over better quality stuff.

But - doesn't chalk paint come off quite easily? So I was told by an antiques seller trying to flog a chest which was half original wood and half gun metal chalk paint, anyway. If so, seems like a win-win as all that brown furniture can be restored when it inevitably comes back into fashion instead of being lost forever.

Hello everyone,
Whatever your opinions on the Annie Sloane*, we can see that there has been a great deal of unpleasant goadiness on this thread. Hopefully we have deleted the majority of it, but please can we ask you to stick to our very reasonable talk guidelines for the remainder of this thread.

*other chalk paints are available. and please nobody mention Farrow & Ball or we'll be here all day...

Totally agree with Chris above

Also, to set the record straight, paint made of chalk and in some instances, also lime, have been around for hundreds of years to paint furniture and wall frescoes (and ceilings). Annie Sloane is by fa not the first, just the first to mass market and that following on from association with Jocasta Innes who reinvigorated painted furniture in the UK, but has been going in around the world for hundreds of years. Have none of the naysayers been to Venice, Tuscany, Florence for example?

You can also pay a small fortune for Laura Ashley painted furniture (they do really well selling these items) or find something similar and paint it well to look almost identical.

I'll have to admit I don't like chalk paint, the shabby chic look or much painted furniture.

I love the look of wood grain.

However, I do realise that's just me.

Whatever you like can go in your own home, but all the amateur upcyclers on Facebook sale groups are hidden from view.

I think it can look nice but only if it's done well. There's a shop near me where the woman just commits acts of vandalism of perfectly good furniture. Sticks some ditsy wallpaper on bit of it, paints other bits baby blue and so on. Terrible stuff. I want to weep when I go past.

This sort of thing can die a death.

Oh man alive!

That'll teach me to post before having rtft!

Eeek.

Off to hide this very heated debate!

I like the way older furniture is made, sturdy and solid. If the item has gone past it's sell by date, I will fix, pain and use it. I also agree that some furniture looks positively manic, rather than gently distressed.

Too late now you've posted and you'll be on someone's shit list forever. Might as well stay around to see if we get any more Rumplestiltskin meltdowns.

When we bought our house we inherited some brown Louvre doors which covered a tall cupboard. I genuinely couldn’t afford to replace them, and as a piece of wood they were destined for landfill. Varnished in dark stain they absorbed light from the hallway and were not my taste at all. I painted them with some chalk paint I had left over from another project, to make them look like old French shutters. Added some French style handles and they are, to me, a joy to behold.
We also had some mahogany varnish cheap cladding in the hallway which, again, we couldn’t afford to get painted. I used chalk paint for speed as no prep and it looked so much better. We have now replaced it and had the wall replastered. These are the chalk paint projects I like rather than proper antique furniture being painted.

Too late now you've posted and you'll be on someone's shit list forever. Might as well stay around to see if we get any more Rumplestiltskin meltdowns

Rumplestiltskin! I loved that book. Anyway it's fine don't think Annie Sloan is on mumsnet, unless that was Annie Sloan...

So someone did report a thread about furniture!