Episode 15 - Thrifting

In this episode Kate and Jenny are talking about thrifting, giving their best tips for finding unique pieces, knowing how to spot a bargain, and some upcycling advice for bringing pre-loved items back to their former glory.  (Please excuse my scratchy voice in this episode, I had a sore throat! - Jenny.)

Where to shop for second hand deals:
- adverts.ie
- donedeal.ie
- Kilkenny Architectural Salvage
- Pamono.eu
- The Vintage Hub
- Pete’s Antiques
- Acquired.ie
- Francis Street, Dublin - full of antique shops
- Vision Ireland (formerly NCBI) 
- Facebook Marketplace
- Catawiki.com
- Irish Chimney Pieces

Furniture brands mentioned:
- G-Plan
- Mackintosh
- Willis & Gambier

Other items mentioned:
- Annie Sloan chalk paint
- Contact paper
- Foam2Home
- Tiffany lamps
- Murano glass

Chapters

• 0:00 Episode 15 - Thrifting
• 0:33 Episode intro
• 0:47 Episode body

Transcript

Episode 15 - Thrifting

Jen: [00:00:00] You are listening to rip it up the renovations podcast. 

Kate: hi, I'm Kate. I run the Instagram page, @victorianrathmines 

Jen: Rathmines. And I'm Jenny. I run the Instagram account, @workerscottage

Kate: This podcast is all about renovation and interiors from the renovator's perspective. We've been through it a few times between us and it hasn't scared us off. In fact 

Jen: we loved it so if you are planning to do up your own home you can expect to hear lots of advice from our own experience along with plenty of tips and inspiration.

Episode intro

This is episode 15, and we are talking about thrifting. all of our best tips for finding unique pieces, knowing how to spot a bargain. And some upcycling advice for bringing pre-loved items back to their former glory. 

Episode body

Jen: Welcome back to the podcast. Hi Kate. Hi Jen. Episode 15.

Kate: 15. Thrifting. Fifteen and 

Jen: thrifting. 

Kate: Yeah. One of my favourite topics actually. Yeah. I love buying second hand stuff.

And I love reselling stuff. 

Jen: [00:01:00] Yeah. 

Kate: It's so satisfying. So I find it great. Like, I like nice things but I also like to get a nice bargain on nice things sometimes. And I think and upcycling is the way to do that. 

Jen: And it's so satisfying not having to, you know, Just something not going to waste. Yeah, you know, like I hate clutter I hate stuff lying around the place the fact that somebody else might get used out of it is very very rewarding Yeah, 

Kate: it is.

Absolutely. Yeah, so 

Jen: thrifting, 

Kate: where to buy? 

Jen: Where do you start? Where do you start? Where do you 

Kate: browse 

Jen: when you're on the 

Kate: couch in the evenings and you're like, I'm just looking for a little something something It really depends on how much work you're willing to put in and how specific your search is.

That's what I would say I'm more of a trawler. Like I'll just look at adverts or I'm more of a trawler. Like I'll just look at adverts or Sometimes Done Deal, 

Jen: when you're looking, do you have like certain search terms that you'd be looking for? Yes. Are they 

Kate: brands? Are they? I usually start with nearby.

Okay. And I set it to two kilometers and I just look at everything that's up there. Okay. Right. Oh, there's mad stuff. Nazi coin that comes up a lot. Yeah, really random stuff. Anyway. . So I [00:02:00] usually set it to nearby, see what's around. And then if I have something specific, You kind of find the search terms through trial and error.

So when I There's a lot of 

Jen: education involved in this, isn't it? Like if you're, if you're somebody who wants to go and get a good bargain on really good, you know, secondhand furniture or housewares, whatever, be prepared, if you're not already, for there to be quite, Some learning in it, which is a good thing, you know, it's really satisfying.

It's very stimulating. There's a lot to learn, but just make sure that you know what you're looking for. 

Kate: There is definitely a bit to learn, but you'd be kind of quick to catch on to how to get the bargain. Sometimes I'd look at mid century pieces and once you type in mid century, the price, you know, doubles.

But sometimes it just might be up as vintage or solid wood or something like that. So those kinds of search terms I keep it really broad first. So if I'm looking for a console table, I'll just search console and then see what comes up. Narrow it down a bit if there's a little crap in that, you know, solid wood console.

And then I'd add and add and add and you kind of generally start to narrow it down. A good [00:03:00] example is we were looking for a wardrobe. We just put solid wood wardrobe and we ended up getting a Gplan solid teak wardrobe for 80 euros because it wasn't 

Jen: That's the best bargain you've ever gotten. It was probably the best bargain.

Kate: There's been a few actually on adverts, I will say but it was, it wasn't found by putting in Gplan. It wasn't found by putting in mid century, it was just solid wood wardrobe. Made some of the failures and I was pretty much in perfect condition besides a little light sand and teak oil. 

Jen: And when it comes to brands like that, you can always Google and check out, you know, what should the brand mark look like?

What should the logo look like? What kind of hallmarks are there for this type of furniture? And you can double check. That way, just make sure there's lots of photos. 

Kate: Yeah, and sometimes like, brands mightn't be a big deal for you, it might just be a solid wood piece and then that's perfect. It can just 

Jen: be a way to check that you've got something quality.

You know, if you know there's a really solid, reliable brand. Like, not, obviously, not everything has to be branded, but if you know of some really good, reliable brands. Yeah. It's just one way to tick a box. fix it for sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, 

Kate: obviously you've Gplan and Macintosh and all [00:04:00] those kind of like, old school, mid century ones.

Boss. Also then there's kind of I suppose more recent kind of you'll start to see them like Willis and Gambier and those kind of more modern kind of wood furniture pieces But I don't know. I just start kind of broad put in something like generally kind of covering everything you want to find But I'm more of a trawler.

I generally don't go looking for something specific and that's when I find the best stuff I think yeah because looking for something specific is an 

Jen: exercise in frustration. Yeah, you know It's just really hard to find exactly what you're looking for. It's always worth a look Yeah, but if you if you need something specific Be prepared to be waiting for a while because it's not just going to be magically appearing.

Kate: Yeah, I think you're kind of, you can have a quick, fast or cheap, like, and you can have any two. You can't really go on to adverts, expect to find what you want cheap straight away. If you're really pressed and you want something very specific and perfect condition, then you're going to need to go through like a third party kind of antiques dealer or something like that.

Another option is, you know, dedicated salvage yards [00:05:00] or antiques dealers and there's one I follow on Instagram called Kilkenny Architectural Salvage and I love it. They do a yard walk. Do you ever watch the yard 

Jen: walks 

Kate: on their live? 

Jen: It's like a wonderland. I'm just 

Kate: like on the phone there shopping like in my head.

I'm not, not like looking for anything but I end up wanting to buy stuff just because I love the walk around and like it's like shopping without being there. 

Jen: There's so many of them across the UK. We do have some in Ireland too but there's loads in the UK if you're ever over. It's loads of salvage yards and they have absolute gold in there.

Kate: I used to live beside one in Amsterdam actually. I used to live in kind of Amsterdam Nord over by the train there. And the flea market there was unbelievable as well. And I loved and I'll wander around even when I wasn't looking for anything. So 

Jen: yeah. That's an education too. Like if you're not looking for something, But you enjoy the browse.

Kate: Yeah. 

Jen: It's a great way just to learn, you know, what's good, what's not, whatever. I think what it comes down to there then is materials. Like you want good quality materials, ideally solid wood, because that's going to last a very, very, very long time. You know, any types of like good stone, like granite is always.

Yeah. In general. 

Kate: Stone top. [00:06:00] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And in some pieces, like real kind of antique wood pieces, you might see a lot of veneer. Yeah. Just for decorative purposes. You know, there might be like kind of inset, kind of trim on it and stuff like that for that kind of decorative stuff. So just be aware the veneer is very, very, very difficult to repair unless you're a specialist.

So if it's a veneer that's very badly damaged or it's a laminate over chipboard, you're not going to do much with those. Yeah. So, you know, just I suppose, a word of caution, I suppose, buying stuff like that. So I think solid wood stuff is very hard to get wrong. 

Jen: Yeah. Like you can just send it back. Because you can sand it back or you know you can fill in little chips if you really really need to but yeah.

They tend to. Yeah definitely. 

Kate: Another bargain I got actually was my antique wash stand. Oh yeah. Do you remember my last bathroom? So we spoke about this in the bathroom one. We think bathroom vanities are ridiculously overpriced. So I kind of took matters into my own hands and bought an antique wash stand and it took me a while to find that because I didn't know what I was searching for.

I was searching for side table and. Batching [00:07:00] table and like console and I don't know I didn't know what it was called and I eventually figured out through maybe Another antiques page or something. Oh, it's a washstand That's what it's actually called and then when I started searching that I started finding loads of them So yeah, it's about finding the right kind of search words.

So adverts obviously done deal facebook marketplace. They are kind of bargain places Yeah, right. Yeah, but Okay, budget's not as tight, then you might start going to Antiques Dealers, you might go to the likes of, like that Architectural Salvage place, you might go to Joythorpe, like there's a few beautiful places like that.

And then if you've no budget, you might go to the places that like, everything is like already ready, perfect, it's been preconditioned for you, like Pamono is a really good kind of designer one, you were talking about a few other ones as well. that you would come across in Dublin. 

Jen: Yeah. The vintage hub. I really like in Dublin at Pete's antiques is brilliant for a little browse around acquired.

Oh 

Kate: my God. Amazing. So 

Jen: great. And then you mentioned one, Oh, [00:08:00] really fancy one, 

Kate: a really fancy one. No acquired is really fancy. I think, well, it's as fancy as I would ever go anyway. But there's Pamono was the one I kind of mentioned as well. It's kind of European wide, but it's very designer kind of led stuff.

So very expensive pieces. 

Jen: Unfortunately, because we're not in the continent, shipping can be a cost if you're getting something 

Kate: from outside Ireland, which is really frustrating. But anyway, some things are worth it, aren't they? And then actually going back to the lower end of the budget, just if you're in Dublin, walk to Francis Street.

Oh, 

Jen: Francis Street. So Francis Street in Dublin. First of all, it's full of antique shops, which are great. My favourites. And it's not limited to Francis Street, there's, there's, these are all over the country. The NCBI, which actually have rebranded recently, are they, I think it's Vision Ireland they're called now?

Okay. Or Sight Ireland, I'll, I'll need to, I'll put that in the show notes. But they often have furniture, second hand furniture shops. I bought a couch there years ago, a corduroy couch, which one of our friends has in her house now. It's still going strong, it's a fabulous piece. And It just, you know, I gave it a good, like, scrub when I [00:09:00] got it and it lasted and it was brilliant.

They have some fabulous pieces in there. What 

Kate: do you think about soft furnishing secondhand? 

Jen: The smell. 

Kate: Yeah, like It just doesn't, So, the reason I bought a secondhand 

Jen: couch is because when I was living in this house, before it was getting renovated, I just needed a couch and I was like, I'm not buying, I'm not spending the money on a new one, I don't need it.

This was literally 50 quid, like for a perfect, really nice couch. What I did, it, it, it was in really good nick. What I did was I coated it, I made up a mixture of bicarb sodium bicarbonate and, A few drops of an oil, I'd like this orange flavoured essential oil that I had that I loved. And I sprinkled that out, like, liberally over it twice and then hoovered it, like, gave it a really strong hoover down.

And that did wonders for it. But I think it was just in good nick in the first place. Yeah, 

Kate: yeah. You have to be careful, I suppose, with soft furnishings. One, how bad are the fillings? Yeah. Like, will you have to actually replace fillings if it's something like sofa? And then two, can you actually get the smells out of it?

So, I think For sofas, you could be pretty lucky. [00:10:00] Like if it doesn't look generally stained and stuff, it's unlikely to be really 

Jen: smelly. Just check all aspects of us. And you know, especially with photos, just make sure there isn't like any sun bleach spots or anything like that, for example. And if you can't see it in person, maybe ask the seller, did they have a pet or is there anything that would warrant like a smelly, 

Kate: but also like getting professionals into clean a sofa, isn't really expensive.

Like it's not that expensive. So like, if you get a bargain, like you did. And it looks in decent condition. You're really kind of grossed out by the concept. It's 70 euros or 50 and clean your sofa. 

Jen: Yeah, usually what they clean it with is a steam cleaner and that seems to do everything and it kills anything that it comes across as well.

So there's no 

Kate: that's a good one for like any soft furnishings like that. You got a couple of rugs before. Yeah, i've had a lot of kind of Vintagey rugs or Persian rugs. I actually got one from a family member it was in storage for ages And I loved it. I love the colors of it, but I couldn't get it clean Persian rugs you really have to be careful because the pile is so deep that basic carpet [00:11:00] cleaning doesn't really get them clean To clean persian rugs real persian rugs properly.

They have to be absolutely saturated and then like wrung out So, and that's 

Jen: specialist machinery and that can be really expensive so it 

Kate: really needs to be worth it for the rug, like you're getting it at a bargain price, because cleaning it would be so hard. And we actually got professional cleaners to clean this rug twice.

Wow. Before I gave up on it, I just gave it away for free, because I was like, to get a fresh knee properly like soaked and like wrung out. There wasn't very many people doing it. And I got a few quotes for three, 400 euros to get it cleaned. And it was a small rug and I was like, do you know what? It's not worth it.

So I gave it away to someone who probably reconditioned it and resold it or use it themselves. I don't know. But it's just a word of warning, I suppose, on soft furnishings. Make sure it's something that you can clean down. Yeah. 

Jen: I think one place you can do really well, so rugs obviously have high traffic, couches and, you know, other seats and stuff tend to have high traffic.

Curtains, you could do really, really well on curtains. Yeah, pieces get them cleaned. Yeah. So I work with somebody who has fabulous [00:12:00] taste and he managed to grab a set of curtains. Let me get this story right. I think they had been in. Madonna's Hotel in Miami? I could have the wrong superstar. But anyway, long story short, ended up, you know, at a hotel kind of clearance.

The hotel was closing down. They were getting rid of stuff and he, he went back and said, please can have those curtains and worked out a deal and got the most fabulous curtains. Because, you know, if you've really high tall windows and you want really fabulous curtains, you're looking at a lot of expensive fabric.

So secondhand there could be a really good option. Just make sure that the seller isn't a smoker or something like that. And doesn't have like, Yeah, 

Kate: we should be able to get them dry cleaned or whatever. That's a pretty good idea actually. I've never gotten curtains. I've never even looked. Yeah. 

Jen: You can get some really fabulous stuff.

Yeah, 

Kate: I'd say so. A lot of people use Facebook Marketplace now. I still don't think it's great in Ireland. I think it's okay. It seems to be an absolute goldmine Yeah. Because pages I follow in the UK, I'm like, What? How did they get that for like 100 or something? But I haven't seen as much [00:13:00] when I search it here.

Yeah. I find adverts still a little bit better. But yeah, I think I love an adverts troll in the evening on the couch. And just be open minded. You know, you may have your house 90 percent done, right, and you're just looking for a few kind of key pieces to add a bit of character maybe, and that's why you're looking for something secondhand.

So then I would say just go with an open mind. You don't know exactly, but you might know key dimensions of the space you're trying to fill or something like that. And when I've done that, I've found kind of solid old console table for 50 euros. I bought a, like a mid century demi lune table. I got it for a hundred euros.

It was absolutely perfect condition. I've had like, you know, gold gilt mirrors for like, I think I got it for 120 euros, huge over mantle mirror. So like, there's great deals to be had if you go in with kind of a bit of an open mind and see, see what's there. So satisfying. Yeah, absolutely. 

Jen: And then if the sound of all that work isn't for you, another great place to go is auction houses.

Yeah. So, the reason that they're really good is because Okay, you could, you still have to be buyer beware, you still have to make sure that what you're [00:14:00] buying is good quality and you have to check it yourself, but they have a reputation to uphold, so they're very unlikely to be selling junk or misrepresenting anything unless it's a genuine mistake.

So, going, going into an auction house, now, it is. Like it's a very different buying experience. So what I would definitely recommend is go along to one or two auctions with no intention of buying anything. As in leave your credit card at home, leave your money at home, don't buy anything because you can easily get swept up.

You know, that bidding process tends to create a sense of urgency and it's hard, you can easily fall victim to it. I would never. So. 

Kate: Be regimented enough to be like, I'll leave my money at home. No 

Jen: way. You know, I know, I know. Cause it's such a like, this is one of a kind, this is a bargain of a lifetime.

And all of a sudden you spent like a thousand euro on something you didn't even need. So just be a bit careful, but it does mean that kind of that vetting process is done for you. So. So, check it out, look for your local auction house, look for a lot of them have online processes now. You can browse the online catalogue.

You can get a good sense. A lot of them are specialists in certain items, so you might have jewellery ones or you might have like [00:15:00] certain certain eras of furniture type of thing. And if you don't have control. 

Kate: Go into the live auction, a lot of the online ones now allow you to put in a kind of a max bid and you can walk away and just come back when the auction is done.

And do walk away. Yeah, and do walk away, just don't watch it maybe and pop your 

Jen: bid. Or just have a number in mind, just be really honest with yourself and just say, I am not going any higher than whatever it is, 800 euro, 1000 euro, whatever it is that you're looking for. And just be really strict to yourself and just say, right, once it hits that, I will wait for the next item because another one will come along.

Kate: Yeah, another page, it's kind of like, it's kind of like a mix of Pomono and eBay or something. It's called Catawiki. It's kind of random stuff that can be kind of upcycled, some new stuff, some old stuff. Like, it's really cool for kind of slightly more alternative pieces. I found some really cool drinks cabinets before on Brown Thomas and I think I shared it on my Instagram actually.

It was an old Drinks trolley from an airplane. Drinks trolley. Yeah. Like a, like a [00:16:00] proper, you know, stainless steel one or whatever. But inside then it was all kitted out with like glass shelves and lights and places to hang your wine glasses or your cocktail glass or whatever. It was amazing, but it was like 3, 000 pounds.

Euros or something. Yeah. But the same thing was on Wicki for like 800 euros or something in Germany or something if you were willing to do a little bit upcycling, whatever. Yeah. It might be another way to find quirky kinda stuff like that, I think. 

Jen: And then aside from furniture and software, ings like fixtures and appliances you can get on.

Kate: I actually see a lot of kitchens up there recently. 

Jen: Yeah, so I know somebody who did this, bought a second hand kitchen and and installed it themselves. Kitchens are like, they're modular effectively, so you can take apart the cabinets and you can rearrange them into new sizes and new styles. So if you are someone that you know is handy or you've access to somebody who's handy, really think about getting a second hand kitchen because that's a great way to save some money.

Kate: I've seen quite a lot in Dublin recently and I kind of regret not doing it. We moved into our house pre renovation because our kitchen was so bloody bad where we are at the moment. But they had [00:17:00] Kube kitchens which were probably like 15, 20k putting them in originally. And people were selling them for like 1, 500 quid with appliances.

Jen: Because it's not something you think of, you know, it's not a popular search term because I think people don't realize that you can actually, you know, re jig a kitchen to fit into different spaces. 

Kate: Yeah. 

Jen: Yeah. And we all know how budgets 

Kate: get squeezed during renovations, so like it could be something that is Maybe a temporary measure for you or it could be a perfectly good functioning kitchen that you love.

Could be a solid 

Jen: wood kitchen. Yeah. Like people. 

Kate: Yeah. Totally paintable everything. Yeah. A lot of them are even including like all the appliances, the kind of stone countertops, everything. So you could just get lucky that it fits your space. Yeah. So definitely keep an eye out for that. I thought that was kind of cool.

Jen: Yeah. That's a really good one. Yeah. 

Kate: Appliances are on that a lot. One of the lines I would kind of steer clear of a lot is fridges. It could be fine, but like the kind of old style refrigeration, like if it's tipped on its side, the coolant stuff can leak and whatever, and then they don't really work properly afterwards.

Jen: I'm personally a little bit funny with electrical stuff. 

Kate: Yeah, you have to be careful. 

Jen: Yeah, if you have skills yourself and you're able to rewire or something or double check the [00:18:00] electrics of it, you're fine, but I'm always a little bit cautious of something secondhand. Anything 

Kate: that's been rewired or kind of opened and the electrics have been fiddled with.

Yeah, definitely be careful. I bought a few antique lamps. It's a big kind of bobbin floor lamp and I also bought a like a ceramic kind of table lamp. I bought, the wiring is a bit dodged, like the bulb holders were kind of the old brass kind of ones. I just rewired it.

I . Like, it's not rocket science, it's just like a new bulb holder, a plastic new one or whatever on Amazon. And I rewired the plug and I rewired that. It was just safer, it felt safer to have a bit of earth on it or whatever, you know? Yeah, so that's something definitely to watch out for if you are looking at electrical appliances or something like that, that it has been rewired well or you're willing to get it rewired or something. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Kate: One thing I actually got in this house, but I see them all the time, is cast iron radiators.

That is brilliant. They're so expensive. Yeah, they are. Oh my god, they're so expensive. Expensive. So it's definitely something to look at secondhand. Yeah. 'cause they're totally fine most of the time. [00:19:00] Yeah. If they're functioning and they fill up and they're heating, you know, like they're great. Yeah. I bought an electric cast, iron Rad.

And I'd say it was maybe a quarter of the price of what I would've paid now. 

Jen: Yeah. '

Kate: cause they last forever 

Jen: though. Things they do. Yeah. You know, they're bulletproof. So. Yeah. I think that's a great out. Yeah. It's 

Kate: definitely something to watch out for. 

Jen: Yeah. Potentially some bathroom fixtures too, like a wall mounted towel rail or something like that.

Yeah, 

and then in general, so when you bought your antique washstand you needed to drill in a hole to put the sink on it . So in general kind of upcycling.

Kate: Yeah, I think, again, like, look that it's kind of solid wood. If it's veneer or laminate that needs repair, I generally steer clear because it's pretty specialist and you might not be able to do it. So a couple of things I've kind of upcycled, a solid wood console, my antique washstand. And usually if you're able to give them a light sand back and some sort of re oil, re stain, re varnish.

And if you want to just paint over, say you've got a lovely wood dresser and you don't like wood and you just want to paint it, colour your walls [00:20:00] or 

Jen: whatever. 

Kate: Just a good primer

Jen: I love that chalk paint, you know that Annie Sloan chalk paint when you're doing It's a bit much for walls, but it's a really like matte finish. Yeah, almost slightly rough. Can you 

Kate: feel it? Yeah, I love it. Love it. Yeah, 

Jen: I did it to a set of chairs we had back in a rental place just painted and then the seat of the chair, they were dining chairs, the cushion just screwed out.

So I bought some really nice rolls of fabric and just staple gunned the fabric around onto each one and put in a bit of extra cushioning. 

Kate: A staple gun is so inexpensive, like 10 or something like that on Amazon. So I use my staple gun a lot and one thing I used it for that I upcycled, I bought this storage ottoman, but it had a curve on it.

Like it was kind of a cool shape. Oh, I remember that, yeah. It was kind of a hideous fabric, no offence to the person who owned it, but it was, like it was kind of real naughty kind of fabric, like Purple and silvery flowers or something. So I bought that and I had fabric I had left over from the fabric outlet in Newbridge I went down there one time and I found this gorgeous kind of neutral bouclet fabric So I bought like six meters of it, didn't need a [00:21:00] friendly, but I thought it was class And I was like five euros a meter, so I bought it.

So I wrapped that and I re Upholstered, that kind of. With a staple gun. With a staple gun. Yeah, it's brilliant stuff. Love it. So easy. Really, really good. And it's a big storage ottoman and now it's in the kids playroom. Lovely and neutral and all their toys for them. Yeah, pretty much. 

Jen: Another thing I did, this is a good few years ago getting back in a rental place, was I needed just a kind of a temporary shelving unit And I found, I think it might have been even a second hand, Ikea, but it was something anyway, I picked it up for like 10 euro.

And it was just like a metal frame and then glass insert shells, and I don't like glass, I find it just, the dust that it gathers just really annoys me, I just don't really like glass furniture to be honest, it's not my personal taste. So I took off the glass panels, spray painted the metal to be like a matte.

that was super popular at the time. And then I got contact paper. 

Kate: Okay. 

Jen: Which was so handy. And they just covered all of the glass shelves in this kind of marbled contact paper. And it just looked great! I see a 

Kate: that 

Jen: contact. 

Kate: Oh 

Jen: [00:22:00] business! 

Kate: Even as a bit of a kind of a What you call it, an upcycle of your kitchen countertops if you've old laminate.

You can put it on your 

Jen: kitchen countertops. So it's not bulletproof. So you need to make sure that you're using chopping boards cause you can, but 

Kate: it is 

Jen: relatively sturdy. Like if you'll get a good while out of it. It's made from a kind of a vinyl usually, and it's just sticky on one side and you can get all sorts of patterns.

You know, you can get marble, you can get kind of a quartzy pattern. You can get wood if that's your thing. Yeah, it's a really, really good 

Kate: idea. Talking about kitchens actually and upcycling kitchens, so a lot of kitchens in the noughties were like glossy cream Like that's what do you see a lot? Yeah, people giving away right just these glossy cream and what that is usually it's like an MDF door that has been kind of wrapped yeah, now if You see some of those kitchens that have aged that is starting to lift off And some of them will be stuck and some of them won't.

If you get a heat gun and you, you know, run it over those doors, that coating will just come off and you'll have a perfectly flat [00:23:00] MDF you can paint. Yeah. 

Jen: Even a hair dryer, if you don't have a heat gun, like if you've got a nice hot hair dryer, you It'll lift it up and then you have 

Kate: perfect flat MDF doors ready to prime and paint.

So you could have if you don't like those glassy doors with a glassy finish, that's a great one. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Kate: The kitchen shape might like suit you or suit your layout and then just upcycle the doors. Ideal. Yeah. The vanity actually, I sanded that back. Because it was a French polish, but I wanted to use that vanity obviously as a vanity.

So water wouldn't mix well with French polish because you get rings all the time. So I sanded it back and then we used a worktop oil to seal the top. So then it kind of gave it a bit more of a waterproofness and, you know, it was kind of more suitable for a bathroom. So that's a good one for kind of, you know, using a piece of antique furniture and something that it's maybe not intended for.

It looked so 

Jen: great. I thought I really loved 

Kate: that. Yeah, I know. I did love that. I did love that. Like 150 years, I 

Jen: think. Yeah. 

Kate: And that one you just sand and drill out the back. 

Jen: And that lasts for ages. Yeah. Solid wood.

Yeah, so another great thing that [00:24:00] people often put up for sale or even probably just give away is garden furniture. Yeah. You got, you, well you upcycled 

Kate: We upcycled, yeah, we mentioned this in the last gardens episode, so I bought a really cheap set in Sclung. It was an aluminium frame, so the aluminium frame was fine, but it was white.

I didn't really want a white aluminium frame. Bachelor pad looking. The cushions were really crap, so I actually bought foam. You can buy like foam cut to size now online. Which is perfect if you're upcycling any seat pads or any kind of like chairs that might need to be reupholstered. So I bought new seat pads and I bought covers in Ikea and I spray painted the frame.

So like that's always a good shout if you're looking for maybe garden furniture. Do you remember 

Jen: where you got that foam you sent to me before? It's like foam to home. Foam to home. . 

Kate: I've gotten lots from them actually. And my husband's kind of got a golf driving simulator thing with kind of triangles of foam off the side to kind of, if any balls deflect or go, go skew, which they do sometimes.

We got foam for that as well. So this foam got a size for kind of any use, which is really handy if you're doing any kind of upcycling projects. Yeah, for sure. Brilliant. [00:25:00] The only other thing I was thinking, I haven't actually bought, but I always watch out for them is antique kind of light fittings.

Yeah. Ceiling light fittings, chandeliers. I like Tiffany lamps as well. I love those. The Murano glass . Yeah. All those amazing kind of decorative glass kind of pendant lights. I think they're gorgeous and they're something that you could definitely get a bit of a bargain on.

Yeah. But yeah, again, wiring. Yeah, but if it's just, yeah. Yeah, because a lot of the time the bulb holders would be old bulb holders and stuff like that and you might start to see flickering or whatever if they're not. Yeah. So you might need to plan to rewire stuff like that, like with any of the electrical stuff.

They're so beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. 

Jen: Another major one that people often put online when they're renovating a house is a fireplace. Yeah. And if you're looking for a really nice fireplace, like if, if you need to kind of, you know, match to a certain theme or you want something like really traditional or even like, I quite like some of those kind of.

more mid century art deco y type ones that are tiled with the curved tiles around them. I think they can be fab. 

Kate: Yeah. 

Jen: So if you're looking for that, people often, if they're ripping out fireplaces, will often put them on averts or [00:26:00] done deal, or especially in the salvage yards, you'll find loads of them, even stoves.

So again, just make sure you're getting it checked out by a professional. But if you're looking for like a wood burning stove or any kind of solid fuel burning stove Check secondhand first, you never know what people are getting rid of. 

Kate: Yeah, there's always a lot of fireplaces because I think people are generally closing up fireplaces now.

Jen: Yeah. 

Kate: And you know a lot of these old houses have them in every room and people don't want them in every room now. So it's definitely worth, but if it's a marble one, you can disassemble and reassemble, but you might need a kind of a specialist to do that. Again, if you're on Francis Street, Yeah. It's by there.

Amazing. Irish chimney pieces, I think the shop is called, and antique fireplace restoration. But if you find one you love online, they'd reinstall and refurbish it for you. 

Jen: Because they last for ages, those things. Especially the ones that are wrought iron, they're like bulletproof. Oh yeah, yeah, 

Kate: those are the huge, yeah, they weigh a ton though.

Just keep in mind. Collecting these things. 

Jen: Yeah. Actually another option sometimes, and this is rarer, but it's possible, is flooring. So sometimes people might rip up, you know, wood floors and it might [00:27:00] not be from a house, it could be from a commercial property, something like that, and you could get lucky and come across, especially if you've got a small place, you know, if you've got a small floor space You could find some perfectly good solid wood planks.

Kate: We put up our leftover, kind of where we put laminate in a small area, and we had a few boxes left over. It was perfect for someone's kind of back kitchen or utility or small kitchen. As we put that up for free recently, and it was gone in like seconds. But stuff like that, like half box of tiles, if you have a small splash back to do behind a sink or something like that, people are always giving away those. So definitely something to watch out for. Think that's pretty much it for like, thrifting. I love a bit of thrifting. Be patient. 

Jen: Be patient. Don't look 

Kate: for anything too specific. If you're looking for something too specific or quickly, you're probably going to need to pay more. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Kate: And don't be afraid of a tiny bit of upcycling.

Just make sure the quality is there that you can actually send it back and actually repaint it without it falling apart. 

Jen: Yeah, look for good materials. Be patient. Definitely do a little bit of homework and education and kind of get familiar with what search terms to look for. What kind of materials tend to last the [00:28:00] longest.

And what type of, you know, if there's any really good brands out there that you know you can spot a good deal, that will help you not get screwed over. 

Kate: Yeah, definitely. But thrifting is 100 percent where you're going to save money. And your renovation? And so satisfying. So satisfying. And if you don't want to buy second hand, give away the stuff.

Don't throw up in a skip. Exactly. That is it. Yeah, we'll see you again in two weeks. See you next time. Bye. 

Bye.

Jen: If you found that episode useful, please do us a huge favor by giving us a like, and a few stars and especially click that subscribe button. Thank you.