The Rustic Modern & Eclectic Home of Furniture Upcycler – Gareth Young

We’re ending the week on a high with a wonderful heartwarming house tour. It’s the inspiring modern rustic and eclectic home of furniture upcycler, Gareth Young aka @gareth_at_31. He also happens to be our @eclectically_made Decembers winner over on Instagram. This home is definitely worth having a nosey around just for Gareth’s inspirational upcycled furniture alone. Proving you don’t have to spend a fortune to make your home unique and personal to you.

The Rustic Modern & Eclectic Home of Furniture Upcycler – Gareth Young

About

Like so many others that fall down the interiors rabbit hole, Gareth dips into the realms of interiors and design whilst maintaining a full-time job. By day, he works at The University of Sheffield where he gained his PhD and has worked there since 2012. He’s also as a Trustee of a local youth homelessness charity. Such a worthy a cause and one to be admired for don’t you think?!

Somehow, he manages to fit work and updating his home with his relatively new venture Design at 31, where he upcycles furniture. His future plans also include expanding into interior design/consultancy and sourcing vintage items for the home. So watch this space because this year could see him following his interiors/upcycling dream. And if you live in and around the Sheffield area, Gareth also sells his upcycled furniture at Sheffield Antiques Centre.

Gareth’s Home

Home to Gareth, his partner Paul and their two cats, is a 1910 three bedroom semi-detached house right on the edge of the Peak District/Sheffield border. It’s their second house and they’ve been there since November 2016.

Being closer to the countryside, nearer family, and having a larger garden, were important attributes in choosing their current home. They literally fell in love, the instant they viewed the house.

And with a stunning garden like this, who could blame them!

Gareth’s Style

You can see that Gareth has had a life long addiction to interiors and design with how beautifully curated his home is. Both modern and vintage pieces sit alongside perfectly together. And his styling skills are to be admired for his ability to piece every detail together creating a cohesive look and feel to his home.

Styling Tip: Allow negative space between styled areas to allow you too visually take everything in without feeling overwhelmed.

I have always been interested in interiors. I actually remember as a kid playing in the street with friends and my dad turning the volume up so loud when Changing Rooms came on, as he knew it was my favourite programme! I’ve never run so fast so I didn’t miss the start. 

Gareth

Gareth’s home is also proof that you don’t have to spend a fortune on new furniture to create a home with character and personality. I love the authenticity of older styled furniture pieces that adorn Gareth’s home. Upcycled furniture also has it’s added positive effects on our environment too. Reducing our need to fill our landfills and reducing our carbon footprint at the same time. It really is a win win!

Gareth’s treasured vintage finds add interest and intrigue and sit alongside beautifully with the more modern elements. It’s a home that not only visually looks welcoming and comforting but feels it too.

I would say my style is quite eclectic and quite rough and ready. I love seeing clean lines of pristine homes, but I’m just drawn to old, imperfect vintage stuff and that love is only growing!

Gareth

Finding Your Style!

Finding your own style can be a challenge. But fear not! Once you gain the confidence to experiment and try out new things, there’ll be no stopping you. And you may even find that like Gareth you’ll become bolder with your decor choices over time.

I have finally realised I don’t need to follow trends (although I love seeing what is trending for inspiration) but actually, just want to be surrounded by things that make me smile! –

Gareth Young

Following Your Own Style…

I’ve always been an advocate of surround yourself with what you love and you’ll make your home somewhere you’ll never want to leave. There’s nothing more warming to the soul than being able to enter a room that makes your heart sing and one that puts a smile on your face. Gareth has designed their home with care and attention to detail rather than what’s currently on-trend. The result, a home that is unique and personal to both Gareth and Paul.

Gareth has looked beyond the showrooms and interior mags/catalogues. Instead, creatively seeing the potential in what can/could be, rather than opting for easy ready available design trends/solutions. I admire his creativity and ability to pull a design scheme together that’s personal and unique to him. It’s what we should all ultimately try to achieve to when looking at our own homes.

Creating A Home Takes Time…

Applying time, care and consideration as part of their homes journey, Gareth has allowed it to evolve into one that they will love for years to come. It’s the perfect way to add an air of authenticity.

One of the most important aspects of creating a home, especially if you’ve recently moved, is to take your time and live in it first before making any radical changes. It allows you time to see how you utilise each area and importantly how it looks and feels at different points of the year. That doesn’t mean you can’t get the paintbrush out and add some cosmetic changes.

Gareth and his partner knew that they wanted to structurally alter their home when they bought their home they just didn’t know what. They’re now in the throes of submitting a two-storey extension that will be phased to allow them to do the ground floor first.

Future plans entail a side extension which will provide Gareth with a workshop to run his upcycle/interior business. It will also include a kitchen extension so they can have a kitchen/diner garden room. He has big plans for the kitchen which will be mainly freestanding with a rustic look and feel to it.

Most of what we have done so far is cosmetic. We have decorated and styling and this is evolving all the time. I am constantly in that conflict between wanting a French country style with white walls (would love the Bauwerk colour/effect) and my love of dark interiors (I would go full-on Abigail Ahern if I could). 

Gareth

Furniture Upcycler Extraordinaire!

Gareth’s literally helping save our landfills and planet by reinventing each piece with love and due care to create new visions of beauty that older pieces of furniture deserve.

Having up-cycled furniture for our garden room for the first time myself, I can understand why Gareth finds it so therapeutic and rewarding. Although, I do look at my attempts compared to Gareth’s and I think I may need more practice. Or maybe I should just leave it to the professionals like Gareth.

The Rustic Modern & Eclectic Home of Furniture Upcycler – Gareth Young

Don’t forget you can check out Gareth’s interiors journey over on Instagram here. Or if you’re in need of his up-cycling furniture/interior services, you can find his website here.

If you’d love a chance to have your home featured, why not follow me and my cohosts over at @eclectically_made and join in the fun!

Have a beautiful weekend! Thanks, as always for stopping by!

Maria xx