Taking dumpster furniture from “drab-to-fab” has to be one of our most satisfying DIY projects yet. A perk, you could say, (unknown to me until I moved in) of living in an apartment community is that oftentimes when someone moves out they leave a great deal of their belongings behind. This means that I've gone to take out my trash and stumbled across furniture, home goods, ect. just left sitting next to the community dumpsters.
I was in need of a TV stand in a pinch one day and I happened upon a basic 6 cube organizer while I was taking out the trash. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but it was like new and did the trick!
The colors of our family room take inspiration from the ocean and the coastal community in which I live. Primarily in shades of green and blue with touches of natural elements like wood, brass, and gold. And thus far, we are slowly bringing everything together. Most recently we've added some ocean prints to the wall behind our couch. Green seemed to be the perfect color to pull from the prints to extend into the color of our furniture. Of course, Pinterest supplied the inspiration for green furniture before I took the dive and chose a color.
Now, I wouldn’t normally recommend painting a particle board cube organizer if you don’t have to but if it’s free, inexpensive, or you were planning on getting rid of it anyway, go for it! After many paint swatches later I landed on the color “Black Spruce” and went with a paint and primer combo in simi-gloss. After only a couple of coats it covered the black color perfectly! We opted not to bother sanding as well. I wouldn’t say the paint is as durable because of that but it looks great and works perfectly as a stylized piece.
I ordered hairpin style legs, the 4 inch kind, in hopes of elevating the look of it. After spraying a couple of coats of the metallic spray paint in the color “sunlit brass” and just a few minutes of dry time, they were ready to screw into the bottom of the piece!
I ended up really loving the color, although it did surprise me once it fully dried and I look forward to styling the shelves with each season!
Free/inexpensive used furniture has been a great way for me to experiment with DIY projects, be creative, repurpose pieces, and customize furniture to fit my space- all for a fraction of the price of buying something brand new!