Fun with Refurbishing

We are all familiar with the 3 Rs - "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle". Today, I'd like to talk about another R - "Refurbish". I suppose this "R" falls somewhere in between "Reduce and Reuse". Refurbishing allows you to reuse a well-loved item by extending the life of its use and thereby reducing the need to purchase a replacement item.

Here are but two recent examples of items I managed to save from being thrown into the garbage heap. The first project took less than 5 minutes and the second more ambitious project took only a few hours, with a little help from my dear hubby.

So the next time you are thinking about tossing out something, see if you can find a way to refurbish it first!


Here's a favourite turtleneck of mine with a few holes showing here and there.

With a few quick stitches, my turtleneck is restored to almost new again in less than 5 minutes.

We've had these dining room chairs for over 17 years now and it is definitely showing its age.

Here's a chair with a nasty stain. So ugly but still I couldn't bear to toss these chairs to the curbside.

Being a collector of fabric ends from various fabric stores over the years, I finally got a chance to reduce my large pile of craft supplies by using them to re-covering the said chairs. Voila, our worn-out and badly-stained chairs get a second chance at life.