Thanks for all the funny and lovely comments below my previous rant. I realised today, to my utter horror, that one of my most favourite words had been left out and so this is a bijou follow up in order to add another bete noir of mine.
UPCYCLING.
What does this mean? well first of all it does not mean riding a bike up a hill. It is a brand new posh pretentious crappy word for taking bits of awful furniture, fabrics etc whatever you like and making a wonderful new thingy of it. It used to be called recycling but of course that now conjours up visions of landfill and cardboard boxes and plastic bottles and upcycling is so much more than that.
In one of my home mags I read a month or so ago there was the usual feature on a couple doing up a house, I am a sucker for these I tell you, and you are told where they live, how much they paid for the house, what they have done to it blah blah and also what they do for a living. I would say in about 90% of cases the husband/male/partner whatever is a management consultant and the wife/female/partner runs an online website sourcing hand made baby clothes or vintage fol de rols. Don't ask me what a fol de rol is, I have no idea I just like the sound of it.
BUT on this particular occasion the couple in question were both UPCYCLERS. Now call me cynical, but how can you make a living upcycling? In my day this would mean you sold second hand furniture but this is too simplistic now. This couple hunted out furniture that you and I would probably use for the bonfire on Guy Fawkes night and restore it. And please note, it is always but always, given a 'Lick of Paint'. FFS. A lick of paint? surely no person in their right mind would lick paint unless they were pregnant and had awful cravings. Now my flat is full of upcycled furniture, the only new thing I possess is a sofa bed and my bed, nearly everything else has been donated or bought from charity shops but I tell you now nothing has had a lick of paint. It has had layers of the bloody stuff. I have a wardrobe in my bedroom, huge thing, which I bought for £10 years ago. NOT sourced from ebay but from a local charity. When they delivered it they could not get it into my bedroom as the angle in my small flat was too narrow and they departed cheerily telling me I would have to take it to pieces and then reassemble it.
Four hours later it was done. I had broken nails, splinters in my fingers and bruised hands where the screwdriver etc had slipped but it was done. I then proceeded to upcycle it. Sand it down, two layers of undercoat and then two layers of white gloss on top. Not a Lick in sight but great gobs of Dulux all over. I still have this wonderful wardrobe. I am stuck with it really because if I need a new one I shall have to take the hammer to it and chuck it out the window and I have grown rather fond of it
But anybody who says they give an old piece of furniture a lick of paint is a liar.
So any ideas on how you make a career out of upcyling and any examples of upcycling you have done?
Answers below please...
Oh and upcycling does not show up in the spell check so it is not a proper word as far as I am concerned.
Au reservoir.
