Woman Pays $13 for Ruined Furniture, Internet Stunned by What She Does Next – ryan

A video about a woman who gives a ruined sofa a remarkable new lease of life has gone viral on YouTube.

The clip was shared by Debs Stubbington (@BangOnStyle), a 44-year-old digital creator based in Essex, a county in the eastern region of England in the United Kingdom. The video has amassed 2.6 million views since it was posted on April 12.

The video begins with a view of a damaged outdoor sofa made with rattan, a material used in wicker furniture, with very little of it remaining intact.

“Would you buy this? Well, I did and the internet seems really upset with me about it,” Stubbington says in the video. “Most people think I should have skipped it but that’s not what I’m all about. I want to show people how to transform things and stop things going to landfill.”

Stubbington told Newsweek: “The outdoor sofa was £10 (around $13) on eBay and I spent around £120 (around $159) on decking boards, screws and spray paint” to upcycle it.

The clip goes onto to showcase how she turned the old sofa into a “brilliant” new piece of furniture.

She said: “I knew that I wanted to clad the frame in wood, so it didn’t matter if the rattan was damaged. The whole project took weeks as the rattan and staples take hours and hours to remove.”

The viral post comes as the global second-hand furniture market size was valued at $34.01 billion in 2023 and is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.7 percent from 2024 to 2030, according to a report by Grandview Research, a market research and consulting company headquartered in San Francisco.

The market growth was attributed to increasing environmental awareness and a growing emphasis on sustainable living, with consumers opting for pre-owned furniture.

Stubbington’s work on the old sofa began with stripping the rattan off, a process that entailed removing thousands of staples by hand, which took “hours and hours,” she says in the clip.

She cleaned the entire frame with soapy water and a wire brush, as much of it had rusted or the paint had flaked away due to being left outside for so long. She then put the frame back together using its original screws as well as some new ones.

She later chops up some wooden decking boards to clad the seat frame and sands the edges down, before adding wood panels to the armchair and back sections of the sofa.

“Once all the staples are removed from the frame you are left with some dents and holes and so, I chose to clad as much of the black frame as possible. I then stained the cut ends with wood stain,” she noted.

The video later reveals a brand new-looking wood-paneled sofa with a few pillows on it for now. “It’s not finished, of course,” Stubbington said, noting that she’s “going to make cushions for it to make it comfortable to lounge on.”

‘Looks Better Than New’

Viewers on YouTube were floored by the sofa’s transformation and praised the woman’s upcycling efforts.

“Finally someone who really means it, when saying upcycling. Too many people out there destroying perfectly fine stuff, because they want it to look differently and saying they upcycled it,” noted @juliusgaming9603.

User @mandydp2121 said, “You are a real recycler! Beautiful job! Great inspiration Keep on the good work” and @kaitlynboss3497 wrote, “Honestly I think it looks better than new.”

User @sabrinawilson5322 said: “How were people upset, you literally turned a disaster into something amazing, I can only wish I was this savvy at DIY.”

“Love that! You found trash and made it beautiful! You helped saving our planet! Keep up the great work!!!,” wrote @kat1114.

User @Bookish2234 added: “So much respect and admiration for you for upcycling this instead of letting it contribute to the crisis we all face!! Thank you so much!!”

User @Hybrid-Styles also said: “Well done. Too many people throw away stuff and have no thought for landfill. You are very clever, and practicing sustainability. The internet SHOULD be CELEBRATING your attitude.”

Do you have an upcycling-related video or story to share? Let us know via [email protected] and your story could be featured on Newsweek.