Creating a useful/beautiful home doesn’t have to be expensive. All my favourite furniture and decor pieces in my apartment were passed along to me by relatives (the mirror on my desk is from one of my aunts’ houses). 

I found this vintage flip-top vanity on the curb waiting for the garbage truck on my way home from work one day this summer. It had been used as an artist’s work surface and storage space and was in pretty rough shape, but I was sure it had potential. A neighbour very kindly offered to help me carry it home when she saw me inspecting it and trying to figure out whether I could actually drag it home. 

Armed with advice from the internet, I dashed off in search of “chalk paint”. Luckily I met a very nice old hardware store employee whose job used to be consulting on colour for film sets. We had a great chat and he refused to let me buy the expensive chalk paint, explaining that I could get the matte finish I wanted with much cheaper paint. 

I spent a couple of afternoons sanding the table, filling in any little chips on the surface and giving it a clean coat (let’s be honest, 3 clean coats) of paint. Then I replaced the old drawer pulls with pretty glass ones from anthropologie’s hardware section and just like that I had a brand new multipurpose vanity/desk that fits perfectly in my bedroom and is both useful and beautiful. And on top of that, I connected with two lovely people from my neighbourhood who I had never met in almost a decade of living here! 

What is your best curb-side find? Have you ever given discarded furniture a makeover?