A thrifter has saved £3k upcycling an old armchair she bought from the charity shop for £20. Jessica Hilton, 25, has found the tired-looking armchair in the Tree of Life shop, Wythenshawe, Manchester, in June 2022. She snapped up the chair for just £20 and bought boucle material, costing £30 as well as a fabric stapler for £8, to re-cover it in a project that took a couple of days to complete. Jessica had spotted similar pieces online for up to £3k and saved herself £2,942 upcycling it. Jessica, a business owner, from Manchester, said: "I make clothes for a living, I design my own clothes for my business. "I have made clothes in the past and when I wanted a boucle armchair and I looked online and they were like £3,000 but I was like, I could make one of them. "I am a thrifter anyway, I love a charity shop and a car boot, I went to the local charity shop and saw the chair for £20. "I paid £30 for the fabric on Etsy and £8 for the upholster stapler, it was all pretty easy to be honest. "I am really pleased with how it turned out, it looks quite expensive considering it only cost me around £50 and it really goes well with my interior - I'm really pleased with the results." The business owner said that upcycling the chair took her a few days as she had to also look after her son, Nate, but said she could have done it in a few hours if she did it all in one go. "First I took a seam ripper and ripped all the chair, stripping it of its fabric," she said. "After that, I laid my boucle fabric down and I used the pattern pieces from the old fabric, put it on my new fabric and drew around them and cut them out. "Then I just sewn them all up on the sewing machine, it was almost like a jumper for the chair and it fit nicely on separate places and where it was loose I used an upholster stapler." In total, Jessica spent £58 on the chair and saved thousands in the process. Jessica said that she would do more upcycling now she knows how easy it is to do. She said: "Now I know how easy it is and how good looks I probably will do it again. "When I suggested it, my boyfriend was like 'yeah, it might look alright' and when I finished it he was surprised with how good it looked - it is a lot easier than making clothes. "With clothes, there are different sized and a lot more different measurements, if you are upcycling something that has already been made you just use the measurements from the chair."
