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17.01.2024 - 13:07 / thespruce.com / Sheila Kim
Whether you find it while dumpster diving, curb shopping, or thrifting, stumbling upon a perfectly intact piece of discarded furniture at no or low cost to you could result in an intriguing addition to your decor.
However, there can often be complications if not done properly. We asked pros to share their best tips to know before bringing any curb furniture back home.
@vintagefurniturefinds / Instagram
First and foremost, gauge if the piece is worth the effort (for your purposes). Solid-wood construction and wood-veneered items are typically more salvageable than laminated particleboard items.
Carrie Spalding, the founder of a DIY home decor blog and YouTube channel called Lovely Etc, explains how some pieces may have a plasticky feel and can easily be damaged by moisture. She advises that if the piece is wood veneer and the damage isn’t too heavy, you can sand, strip, and refinish it.
It may seem insignificant but check the dimensions against all of your home’s doorways. You don’t want to lug the piece home only to find that it doesn’t fit any of the doorways and thus goes back out onto the curb.
Finally, if you don’t think the piece is worth saving, consider snagging the hardware for repurposing.
@vintagefurniturefinds / Instagram
“Inspect the joints and seams for any signs of damage or weakness, check the underside and back for hidden issues, and ensure drawers or doors function smoothly,” Deborah Meyers, a furniture makeover artist, says.
Things to check on the surface are the extent of discoloration and scratches. Spalding also recommends giving any furniture a sniff because pieces can often absorb unpleasant smoke and mold odors, which may be difficult to get rid of.
@vintagefurniturefinds / Instagram
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If there’s one thing celebrity recipes are guaranteed to do, it’s spark a (lightly-controversial) conversation in the comments of their social media. Reese Witherspoon did just that after she shared a new creation with the world on TikTok January 18: a mug of snow mixed with cold brew topped with salted caramel and chocolate drizzle.
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Are you looking for garden ideas for a difficult part of your garden?
In 2024, design is taking a turn away from pastels and towards the boldness of jewel tones.
If you’re a gardener—and since you picked up this magazine I’m guessing you are—you probably get peppered with plant questions all the time. I know I do. Take Thanksgiving just this past year. My dad was looking for some trees that would “subtly block” his neighbors who had recently put a pool in their backyard. So in between doling out mashed potatoes and deciding if I wanted apple or pumpkin pie for dessert, I pulled out Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs from the nearby bookshelf to spark some suggestions. (That illustrated encyclopedia was a Christmas gift a few years back to help my dad make plant choices without my help. Its successfulness in doing so is still up for debate.) This same scenario takes place at summer picnics, children’s birthday parties, or even on planes when my seatmate asks what I do for a living. After I answer, it’s common to hear, “Wow, that’s so interesting. Listen, I have this spot where I need something …” Most of these inquiries center around trees too—and I get it. A tree is an investment with a capital “I.” Not only is a tree the single most expensive plant you will likely purchase for your landscape, but it is also the longest lived. Trees don’t like to be moved, they generally require a bit more effort to get established than a perennial or shrub, and they are usually the focal point of a specific area. For all of these reasons, everyone wants to choose the right tree.
Kathy Sandel has shared her gardens with us before (More of Kathy’s Calabasas Garden, Kathy’s Garden Transformation in Sacramento), but today she’s sharing the garden she created for her daughter in Sacramento, California.
Pruning can be intimidating. Many of us fear making a mistake our plants won’t recover from. Overall, trees are resilient; with a little practice and know-how, any gardener should be able to tackle this task. Here are some things to keep in mind before grabbing the saw.
With bold floral prints and themes coming back for 2024, now is the perfect time to add the most striking kind of decor to your space: a living plant wall.
Weekly, remove dead plant material from plants and soil. Watch for slugs and other pests on plants, in pots, under trays, in corners, and beneath benches. Sterilize pots and flats with Physan 20 (#7620) before reusing them.
In his classic book Mormon Country, author Wallace Stegner noted that nineteenth century Mormons planted rows of Lombardy poplar trees wherever they established settlements in the territory that is now Utah. The trees served as windbreaks and boundary markers, but they were also the flags that marked the advance of Mormon civilization in a hostile territory. In my hometown and lots of other towns all over the United States elm trees served a similar function, marking the spread of middle class residential neighborhoods during the end of the nineteenth and the first third of the twentieth centuries. In the 1960’s almost all of those tall elegant trees fell prey to Dutch Elm Disease, making each municipality a little poorer.
I have given up indoor seed starting completely on several occasions. The first time it happened I was a novice gardener. I had ordered seeds of just about every plant that I saw in the garden catalogs without thinking about such practical things as gallons of potting soil, hours of daily watering, and square feet of windowsill space. It also did not occur to me to determine whether or not I had room in my garden for even a fraction of my seedlings. My chaotic efforts eventually produced some wonderful plants, but the process was so exhausting that I said: “Never again.”