As I have said before, the previous owners left us with an awful lot of rubbish when they moved out.  However, as the saying goes, one man’s junk is another (wo)man’s treasure so I have managed to salvage a few bits and pieces to add to my collection.  Free stuff + a little spray paint = Super Bargain.

My first find was the two lovely greige pot plants for my kitchen.  A little bit of a scrub (no paint required as the colour was already lovely) and voila, new plant pots.

Try to ignore the fact that my windows need cleaning.

The other day, I spotted a quirky horseshoe hung on a little wire in the cellar.  I didn’t take a before picture (keeping a blog is a new venture for me so remembering to do these things for my lovely readers sometimes slips my mind!) but it was encrusted with rust and dirt.  A quick scrub under the tap with a bit of steel wool and a quick coat of spray paint and it went from minging to singing in under 10 minutes.

I love it’s randomness.

We were also left two old metal file boxs which I love!  They desperately need to be cleaned and I have no clue where they’ll go (the office?  Or is that too predictable?) but I really love them.  So they will be thoroughly cleaned and probably painted – If they do go in the office, I’m thinking pillar box red…

These are some proper gems in the rough!

Absolutely adore those pull handles.

We’ve also got another project on the go…  We were left with a bench in the garden – missing the pertinent ‘seat’, it was completely unuseable (not to mention wobbly) but my handy guy, W, used a couple of the old floor boards that we removed from the living room to create a new seat and added a few extra nails for stability.  Just need to clean it, sand it down and stain it and it will take pride of place in our garden.  I considered painting it a quirky colour (turquoise? orange?) but I think I quite like the idea of staining it instead and allowing it to blend back into it’s surroundings, almost like a whispered secret waiting to be discovered at the end of the garden.

So there you are – a few rubbish finds that either have been or will be transformed for little or no money. I feel like sometimes I’m thrift shopping in my own home, finding neglected pieces and looking to turn them into something worn but loved.   

Have you found anything recently that you’ve given a little TLC?  Let me know in the comments…


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