Secondhand furniture are sometimes just as good as brand new ones, but occasionally these old items need to undergo refurbishments and restorative works. That process, also known as upcycling, transforms them into more useful and better quality products, and includes products that were made from waste materials such as pallet wood. Here are six places where you can find such upcycled furniture pieces.
1. Second Charm
Second Charm is a boutique furniture shop that specialises in vintage furniture, mainly of the mid-century modern and Scandinavian aesthetic, but they also do reproductions, custom orders and restoration works to old furniture.
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Second Charm is located at Blk 21 Kallang Avenue, #05-165 Mapletree Industrial Building. Visit their website for more information.
2. Triple Eyelid
They take discarded wood pallets and craft them into useful furniture such as platform beds, benches, coffee tables and even watch display stands. The Triple Eyelid team also conducts hands-on product and furniture workshops at their studio space at MOX, Katong Point.
Find out more about Triple Eyelid’s upcycling mission and workshops here.
Here’s where you can repair and upcycle your furniture, appliances, and clothes!
3. Everyday Canoe
Started by illustrator and visual communications designer Ng Xin Nie, Everyday Canoe is a passion project where she retails wooden wares made from hardwood offcuts. These teak, cherry and maple wood pieces are too small to make into bigger furniture pieces, so Xin Nie handcrafts spoons, butter knives and brooches out of them.
![94141-everyday-canoe-parfait-spoon](https://sonadecor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/94141-everyday-canoe-parfait-spoon.jpeg)
She conducts workshops at Itchy Fingers, a studio-workshop space in Jalan Besar, at least once a month.
Visit her Instagram page for updates on her workshops and her website for more information.
4. Terra SG
Terra SG is a social enterprise focused on educating Singaporeans to be more environmentally conscious through events such as upcycling workshops where people learn to make items like coin pouches from drinks cartons.
ST Photo: Alvin Ho
Upcycled products such as customised tyre seats ($149) are also sold at their Arab Street office by appointment.
Visit their website for more information.
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5. Hock Siong & Co.
Started out as a karung guni “recycling” business in the 1970s, they branched out into furniture in 1988. Today, Hock Siong is known for its lovingly refurbished and upcycled secondhand goods for use in modern homes.
Hock Siong & Co. is located at #01-03 Junjie Industrial Building, 153 Kampong Ampat.
6. Carousell
Carousell is a boon to anyone looking for cheap, secondhand furniture but if you look at the right places, you will be able to find upcycled treasures as well.
Self-taught furniture makers Ong Bee Yan and her husband Richard Koh have turned some 60 discarded products a new lease of life by converting them into artsy furniture. These range from a hanging lamp with a lampshade made of ice-cream sticks ($10) to a mahjong table topped with a collage of wrappers ($100).
The couple’s own TV console, which they embellished with store bought mosaic glass tiles.
While some of their upcycled goods are given to friends and family, most are sold on online marketplace Carousell.
Find their upcycled products on their Carousell page.