furniture – unicornpostbox

Hi everyone!

Please see below a step-by-step guide of how I upcycled (with the help of my dad lol) four surround sound standing speakers, that my dad no longer wanted… Hope you like 🙂 …

I purchased some plywood from a local business. As seen above, my dad cut the plywood for me, to the same size as some vinyl records I bought from a second-hand furniture shop. I sanded down the sawed circular plywood with sandpaper..

After this, I glued the circular sawed plywood and the actual vinyl records together with contact adhesive…

This is what the stereo speakers looked like before I began upcycling them (see top photo above). The next step was to wash the speakers down really good with some sugar soap, and cover the area where sound is supposed to come out with black tape, in preparation for priming and spraying (as those areas I didn’t want to prime/spray)…

I used a few white finish surface primers purchased from Wilko to prime all four speakers…

Also purchased from Wilko, I sprayed all four of the speakers with a few metallic gold sprays, and a gold glitter spray afterwards for added effect. Both the primers and sprays I used are fast drying, so it’s not too time consuming to wait then spray another couple of layers (as I did, to get the best possible finish)…

I returned then to the vinyls… it was a good idea to sand and file, as well as sugar soap again to ensure the vinyls looked as neat and tidy as possible…

I sprayed the back of the vinyls (i.e. the attached plywood) with a black spray paint, also from Wilko, and touched up areas a little with some black acrylic paint…

I then asked for my dad’s assistance to measure correctly and saw into the speakers, also using a craft knife for precision, to make little slots for the vinyl records to be slotted in…

I gave the speakers another sugar soap to remove any dirt. My dad then used a strong Unibond ‘no more nails’ glue to stick and slot in the vinyl records. Another sugar soap was necessary to get rid of any excess glue and dirt…

I bought some really cool retro music note stickers off of Amazon, I thought these would finish of the speakers perfectly, to create a desired ‘vintage vibe’ and of course definitely in keeping with the whole music theme…

And the final touches – I used a strong Unibond ‘no more nails’ glue to stick some gold sparkly ribbon (from Boyes) around the areas where the vinyl records were already slotted into the stereo speakers… finishing off the project very nicely I think 🙂 …

The end result:

And here are a few photographs showing the end result of my surround sound standing speakers upcycling project; illustrated as natural photographs, and also using a couple of camera effects! … A fully functional unique piece of art, hehe!… They are supposed to act as a quirky shelving units, in case you were wondering, haha 😛

This was only my second upcycling attempt. I think I may donate both these upcycled speakers and my previous upcycling project ,the upcycled drinks trolley, to a second-hand furniture charity shop such as the British Heart Foundation.

If I have learnt anything from my two upcycling projects, it is probably that I shouldn’t go too ‘individual’. By that I mean, I should try and achieve a look which is more likely to be more universally liked.. still vintage / shabby-chic inspired, but more similar to current renovated furniture on the market… I’m going to move away from priming / spraying, and have a go at chalk painting, distressing and decoupage next I think…

So please do keep a lookout for my future upcycling projects!

Nice comments / advice always welcome, hehe!

Thank you 🙂

(Please visit my Facebook page ‘UnicornPostbox’ to ‘like’ and ‘follow’)

In February this year I purchased a second-hand drinks trolley from the British Heart Foundation furniture charity shop in Doncaster, for £15. Only recently, I set aside two days of grafting in our garage to upcycle it… I thought I’d share with you my start to end process, I do hope you enjoy…

This is what the drinks trolley looked like when I bought it. Definitely in need of some tender loving care, and a little titivating! It was quite funny actually because when I brought the trolley outside from the BHF shop in Doncaster, the wheel fell off and started rolling down the street slope! So yeah, it was a bit embarrassing running frantically after a wheel in a busy town centre, but nothing a wingnut couldn’t fix at home!…

The first step was to put on some personal protective equipment, a white overall that made me look like a giant tampon, haha! (Gloves and protective face masks are definitely advisable also when spray painting). I then gave the trolley a good long clean with sugar soap, sanded it down thoroughly, then sugar soaped it again loads to wash off all the debris…

The next stage was to spray the drinks trolley with a spray primer I bought from Wilko’s. I decided to spray paint rather than paint the trolley as I was told this achieves the most effective and fastest drying coverage, which was so true; it only took about 30 minutes to dry, I was pleased overall with the coverage too. I then spray painted only the areas of the trolley I knew were going to be visible in the end product with metallic gold and chrome silver spray paints. Again, these were relatively quick to dry…

I purchased these wooden love hearts from The Works. I used a craft knife to cut the middle of the big love heart, and used the smaller love heart holes as stencils to draw and cut 4 little wooden love hearts, before spraying all these new shapes bright blue…

After that, I cut out some vintage inspired wrapping paper I bought from Clintons to A3 size and laminated them. I glued these to the top and bottom on the trolley using a standard craft glue gun…

Next, I protected the laminated sheets, and spray painted the remainder of the trolley shelves with red, blue, gold and silver splodges. This stage was not planned. Originally, I was going to glue cushion fabric on these areas of the trolley but changed my mind at the last minute. So at this stage, I was pretty much ‘experimenting’ which ooooo sounds so artistic, but in truth it’s probably more accurate to say I was ‘winging it’, haha! I then cut off 8 strips from a red fluffy cushion, to become borders around the A3 laminated sheets…

Next, I used a glue gun to stick down the dried large blue love heart onto the bottom shelf of the trolley (this is where I imagine beer cans to be stored). I also used the glue gun to glue the red fluffy strips of cushion around the edges of the A3 laminated vintage wallpaper…

Lastly, I used the glue gun to glue down 4 pink and cream love hearts I also bought from The Works, then glued to them the 4 small blue spray painted love hearts (where I imagine shot glasses to be kept). I also glued pretty pink ribbon around the edges of the large blue love heart and attached some battery operated lights I purchased from B&M around the top shelf of the trolley…

and yippee, we have an upcycled drinks trolley!

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This was only my very first upcycling project, I have never attempted to upcycle anything before. So, bearing that in mind, it is certainly not the best but I think I have made a valiant effort, and the end result isn’t toooooo frightful, haha!

I hope you enjoyed the post, please do share with me your thoughts on the project.

Thanks, Lauren x

(Please visit my Facebook page ‘UnicornPostbox’ to ‘like’ and ‘follow’)

unicornpostbox

art / craft, travel / theatre

Tag: furniture

Upcycled surround sound standing speakers :)

Upcycled Drinks Trolley – start to end process