Upcycling: Give your furniture new life
Jessica
Interior design and decoration play an important role for Jessica, because only the perfect combination of colour, light and form creates living spaces that make you feel good. Inspired by a love of nature, plenty of green plants have to be present. If Jessica had her way, then every room would be its own “pretty green” oasis, so you can just take a deep breath and relax.
In today's throwaway society, people would prefer to do something to protect the environment and spruce up their existing furniture a little instead of buying something new. Easy on the environment and the wallet, there are many ways to spruce up what you already own. Upcycling transforms waste products or old, useless things into something new. Together with recycling, this DIY trend enables the emergence of new living ideas. Today I'll show you how to turn any piece of furniture into an eye-catcher with masking tape and turn your old or unusable furniture into a unique piece.
Preparation is everything
- The right tools
People often start a DIY project without putting too much thought into it. Especially when working with sticky tape, it is super important to execute the individual steps as smoothly as possible. The right tools are essential. In addition to the adhesive tape itself, I recommend that you have a tape measure, scissors or a cutter, a squeegee, a cloth with dishwashing soap and a hairdryer at hand to make your upcycling project a full success. The so-called squeegee is often available very cheaply in DIY stores, but alternatively, you can also use a ruler, a plastic card or a piece of wood that you cover with a thin cloth. - Removing handles or knobs
Once you have all the equipment at hand, the next step is to create a flat surface. This means: If you want to stick door handles or door knobs on an object, you should remove them first. This makes it much easier to work on your project and you can easily reattach the handles later by making a small incision in the tape. - Cleaning
Before you can start your project, you must first clean your piece of furniture. This prevents crumbs or other dust particles from creating unsightly wrinkles in the adhesive film later. To loosen dust or grease residues, a little warm water and fat-removing soap are often enough. Also important: Afterwards, let the item dry well so that the adhesive works properly.
Let's get taping
- Leave enough room to move/work piece by piece
Measuring too tightly is a common mistake. In particular, if you want to stick to the edges of your object, leave at least a distance of 4 cm / 1.5 inches to get a clean edge later. You can still shorten it later. You should also make sure to work piece by piece during the taping process. So you don't take off the whole film, but only about 20 cm / 8 inches of the film to be able to work more precisely. Should an air bubble creep in, then you can also loosen the film again and start again at this point. For those who don't have much patience: It's better to take one more step before you end up with annoying wrinkles or air bubbles. - The hair dryer – a must-have when foiling
Besides the squeegee, the hair dryer is the decisive essential for dry gluing. If you have already applied the tape and are now blow-drying over the edges of the drawer, your tape will automatically soften and wrap around the edges almost by itself. The same principle also works with the corners of an object: Once the edges are fixed, you only need to cut the film slightly on the protruding side to create a flap. You can then glue them to the piece of furniture and work on them again with the hairdryer, e.g. to close small gaps. - How can I get the tape off?
At some point, every piece of adhesive tape has had its day. Perhaps some people no longer like the design and would like a different colour scheme. However, removing it is not always so easy. My tip to loosen old strips: Use the hair dryer here as well. By heating the film, it is much easier to peel off and you minimize adhesive residue on your piece of furniture.
Helpful tools
Great furniture for decorating and customizing
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