ReNesting, reusing, repurposing - they all mean essentially the same thing when it comes to transitioning your furniture to a new house. We have helped a lot of our clients transition their stuff when they move with our ReNesting service.
Sometimes it’s a downsizing situation and choices have to be made to take only the best/most favorite pieces. It is the perfect opportunity to get rid of the stuff you never really loved but was too good to throw out – and besides, you needed SOMETHING in all those rooms! I love the Marie Kondo (author of The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up) admonishment to thank things for their service and let them go, only keeping things that bring you joy. I have to wonder how that applies to purely practical things like toilet plungers, but I suppose, an unclogged toilet is a sort of joy…
ANYWAY back to ReNesting
Sometimes we redo pieces with new paint or upholstery or slipcovers to refresh them to work in a new space and sometimes, they work just as they are but combined with furnishings or draperies formerly in other rooms and a smattering of new things.
But the important thing is to have a plan. Here is a post I did a while back about how to plan.
A recent ReNesting project was a radical downsizing for an empty nester. With her young adult children launched, she no longer needed a large house and so was moving to a 2 bedroom apartment as an intermediate stop while she looked for an ideal smaller house to buy.
We had purchased wonderful comfortable custom furniture for her family room a few years ago and it is this furniture she wanted to use for her new living space.
A luscious tailored gray flannel sofa with spring down cushions, a pair of camel swivel chairs with gray and camel striped back pillows, and a large paisley ottoman (shown above right) would be the starting points. A stack of antique suitcases and lamps from the former living room (shown above left) and a night table and dresser from a former guest bedroom came together in the new apartment living room.
We used the suitcases as an end table on one end of the sofa and the nightstand on the other end. We used a reclaimed larger black round table between the swivel chairs, and the dresser became a console for the TV. The dresser, nightstand and suitcases all have the added benefit of providing much needed extra storage. Because this is a temporary living space, we didn’t want to spend a fortune on the finishing touches (we’ll save that for the next house - haha). But finishing touches are what keeps it from feeling so temporary.
SO We found an ideal inexpensive area rug in subtle neutral and gray tones with a touch of teal in the border at esalerugs.com. And we found the perfect curtains in an ivory cotton with a beige and grey embroidered geometric pattern at IKEA…the curtains were grommet topped, which I abhor – who ever thought ‘hotel shower curtain’ was a good look for draperies?? I apologize if you love your grommet curtains. If you love them, you should absolutely go ahead and use them! Anyway, we did not love them and so she took them apart and re-hemmed the tops to use as panels with rings since they were plenty long enough. We ordered inexpensive skinny metal ivory rod sets with glass finials from JC Penny.
Now that everything is installed, it all looks great and feels like home personalized with her favorite artwork and accessories!
Have you adapted furniture to a new space? What worked well and what was a challenge?