introduction to a trip to the tip

To start, the reason for my blog..well!   I'm not sure, but I think I have stories and experiences to share and I don't want to bore my friends.  When you've crested the hill, climbed the tree, got long in the tooth and your looking back from the great height of old age you realise you would like to share, and pass things on.... and while I still have a few branches to climb and I haven't yet crested the hill, its getting close, very close and we now have this thing called the internet and while I will not bore my friends ... I still have need of them, I'm quite happy to bore the rest of you ...

The  parameter of my blog is to share experiences, sage advice and stories, while sharing my finding of discarded things - furniture, mainly chairs but anything really that I think I can turn into some thing beautiful and functional.

A trip to the tip doesn't mean everything has to come from the tip.  It just means that it has to have been discarded, thrown away, left on the council pick up, sold for next to nothing at a garage sale or car boot sale or even given away by a friend or neighbour.  It has to be something that other people don't want anymore and has no commercial value.

The photos show a chair discarded from a warehouse.  I asked if I could have it and was told it was going to the tip, so knock myself out. I picked it, and a few other things up, well I picked up everything I could fit in my little five door toyota.

I took it home and pulled it apart.  The wood was in good nic but needed some repair on the arm.  The  result of someone sitting on it!  A word of advice, if you are going to sit on the arm of a chair make sure its wider than your butt!  If not don't do it!  You will not be invited back if you snap the arm of someone's beautiful chair.

Once the arm was repaired, I stripped it, painted it and then rebuilt it.  I was given a swatch book of printed linen fabrics that I patched together for the front of the chair and I did the back in a beautiful indian cotton.  I think the result is an improvement - what do you think?  I would love feed back...

My Patchwork Chair

The finished chair ...


This is my first blog. As I get more familiar with how this works I will go into more detail on how to restore some of the furniture.