Blog - Page 23 of 74 - FunCycled - Interior Design, Kitchen Cabinet Painting, Furniture Repurposing in Upstate NY

Posted on August 11, 2020January 12, 2024 by Sarah — 1 Comment

Airbnb in Troy, Ny

Hi Friends!

Our FunCycled Stays Airbnb in Troy is available now! If you’d like to book your stay, you can book it here!

This urban home is nestled on the front side of Prospect Park on upper Congress Street in Troy, NY. The parking lot of the house meets up with Prospect Park where you could take a morning run, play free disc golf in the summer, or bring your favorite sport equipment to play it in the wide open field right behind the house. Take a 5 minute stroll to a local bakery for fresh cinnamon buns; then go just past the bakery, to the right you’ll see the GORGEous view of the Mt. Ida waterfall.

Rainy day? No problem! The house has 3 floors of fun for you! The first floor of the apartment has a game room with classic board games and cards, an air hockey table, and a comfy pull out couch where you can snuggle away with a good book in front of the electric fireplace to keep warm or sleep to make room for more friends.

Game room with electric fireplace. Locker with some games for you to play!

It also has an open floor plan on the same floor to enjoy cooking in the full kitchen (all pots and pans and dishes included), a dishwasher for easy clean up, a dining table for 4-6, and a large sectional in the living room. The living room has a smart TV with fast wifi for you to log into any of your favorite streaming services with your own accounts (no cable).

Open Floor Plan Living Room, Kitchen, and Dining Room

Custom furniture, a comfy sectional, designer lighting.

Not up for being with the group or need to work a bit while your friends play? No problem! The 2nd floor of the apartment has two beautiful bedrooms that will make you want to sleep in and soak up quiet time with your loved one.

The master bedroom has a desk and small room for you to hide away and get those emails done quickly so you can enjoy the rest of your fun filled day.

The 2nd floor also has the full bathroom with a rain shower head and spray handle to give you the most soothing shower.

Teens that want to get away from the crowd or friends that want to watch a movie together? We’ve got you covered there, too! The 3rd floor of the apartment (4th floor of the building) is one big movie room! Watch your head with the sloped ceiling, but that ceiling will give you an amazing sound and theater experience. The movie room has a smart TV with fast wifi for you to log into any of your favorite streaming services with your own accounts (no cable or streaming service included). It also has a DVD player and a selection of DVD’s for you. There’s a microwave and popcorn in the movie room for you to enjoy your movies without needing to leave the room!

One of a kind getaway for your whole family or group of friends!

Perfect for short trips or longer stays! Only .6 miles away from RPI, 1 mile from Russell Sage College, and 1.5 miles from the Emma Willard School. So close! A perfect spot for EMPAC artists, RPI visitors, Emma and Russell Sage parents, or corporate travelers. Out of town guests that might want a special place to stay? Give them the treat of staying in this designer space.

Other close venues or attractions:
Countless restaurants and shops in downtown Troy (1 mile)
Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (1.2 miles)
Albany (15 minutes)
SPAC (33 minutes)
Saratoga Race Track (32 minutes)
Jiminy Peak Mountain (45 minutes)

It would mean so much if you would share this link with any friend you think might be interested. You can book your stay on Airbnb’s website today!

We loved being able to do all the design for this space. We focused on using as much repurposed items we could for accents and furniture throughout the space! Making it green, beautiful, and one of a kind for your home away from home stay. If you love design, you can check out how we redid some of the room here.

If you’d like me to help you with design in your home (can be done virtually to help anyone in the US) or if you see anything in the photos you’d like in your home locally, let me know. We made most of the signs ourselves and build many of the furniture items throughout the space.

Thanks for being the best funcycler’s around!

Sarah Trop

Posted on August 4, 2020August 3, 2020 by Sarah

Kitchen Cabinet Painting in Troy NY

Hi Friends!

How are you? I hope all is going well! We wrapped up almost all of our projects at the #funcycledstays airbnb over the weekend. In less than 2 months we finished it and it was the hardest we’ve worked in our lives. Next week, I’ll share the before and afters of the airbnb as well as a link to book your stay! Stay tuned friends! Here are a couple sneak peeks for you though!

For this week’s makeover, I’m sharing a Troy kitchen cabinet painting, tiling, and wall painting project. Donna reached out to have us paint her kitchen cabinets. She has cherry cabinets so they were tricky to paint. Bleed through is a common problem with cherry cabinet. When the cabinets are painted, the stain color bleeds into the paint and changes its color. You can usually stop that from happening with the right primer, but sometimes even with the right primer, it happens.

Here’s the kitchen before:

We painted the cabinets with Benjamin Moore’s Advanced paint; color White Dove OC-17 (satin finish), sealed it with a water based protective clear coat, and added new hardware. We also paint the walls White Dove in an eggshell finish and painting test trim White Dove in a semi gloss finish! When we paint kitchen cabinets, we also offer tile install. We installed this subway tile for Donna as well! The flooring was installed by Revival Renovations.

Ready for the afters?

Could your kitchen use an update? We’d love to help!! We can help pick out colors, finishes, product and do the cabinet painting, tiling, add new hardware. You can use our Contact Us form to request our design services or a quote for painting your kitchen. Please check out other kitchen projects on our For Sale page. We’ll need to see a picture of your kitchen, a list of how many doors and drawers there are, and where you are located to email you an estimate. This change ups the value of your home and gives you a whole new look at a fraction of the cost of new kitchen cabinets!

Check out some fun new furniture for sale in our store now:

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

If you like what you see, please like FunCycled’s Facebook page to keep up to date on the newest finds, vote on colors and give your input on our creativity. We also offer interior design, kitchen cabinet painting, and custom built tables, barn doors, and furniture. We can deliver for customers in upstate NY and also help you ship throughout the US. Send us a note with what you would like using our contact page. Or buy something that we’ve already designed from our online shop.

Posted on July 28, 2020July 27, 2020 by Sarah

Navy and Wood French Provincial Hutch for Sale

Hi Friends!

I hope you all enjoyed the weekend and have had a good start to the new week. We spent almost every free moment working on the new FunCycled Stays airbnb last week. We are pushing hard to finish it up this week. We’d like to have it ready to rent starting August 7th. Stay tuned! Here’s a first sneak peak of the master bedroom!

I love my house, but I want to stay here myself! 😍

For this week’s furniture makeover, I wanted to show you a before and after of a hutch that we recently redid to sell at our store.

Here’s the hutch before we worked on it:

We sanded and stained the inside shelves with Early American stain by MinWax. We painted the outside of the hutch Old Navy by Benjamin Moore. Then we painted the hardware a bright gold and sprayed the whole thing with a protective clear coat. I could not love this one more! If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post.

Navy French Provincial Hutch with Gold Hardware

This is available to purchase on our website, but you can check out new pieces on our For Sale page:

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

Posted on July 21, 2020July 20, 2020 by Sarah

French Provincial Buffet for Sale

Hi Friends!

How was your weekend? We’re plugging along at the airbnb and pushing to open it the second weekend of August! It’s really looking beautiful! I can’t wait to share all the details with you!

Here’s a silly picture of me and my bestie, MaryGrace, painting the ombre steps to the Airbnb. 😂 She’s pretending to drink the paint and I’m apparently grossed out by that. Hahah!

For this week, I’m sharing the before and after’s of a French provincial buffet that we recently redid. My friend Miguel is moving to Texas so he couldn’t keep it and asked if we’d be interested in redoing it for FunCycled. Thank you so much for thinking of us Miguel!

Here’s the buffet before:

We sanded and stained the top with Minwax Early American. Then we painted the base with Benjamin Moore’s Newburg Green color. If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post.

Ready for the afters?

This is available to purchase on our website, but you can check out new pieces on our For Sale page:

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Sarah

Kendall Charcoal Buffet For Sale

Hi Friends!

How’s your week going? I hope all is well there! I hit a wall of complete exhaustion this weekend. It’s been too many long days, endless projects, and financial stress. We chose to buy the new building on Congress Street, but we had no idea when we signed a contract for it in November 2019 that we would be in the middle of a pandemic and economic crisis in the middle of 2020. We still believe it was the right choice for us, but it’s also been a trying time for us. We just took out our first business loan and have been doing the work almost completely alone. That definitely weighs on me. I’m trying not to compare my life today to my life a year ago. It’s stealing my joy. It’s hard not to… some days I have victory in that and this weekend I didn’t. I cried a lot, made myself get up, and reached out to a few friends to ask for prayer, a listening ear, and better perspective. What a blessing those people were to my heart. We will make it through and be stronger on the other side; like every other business hurtle in the past. Please know your prayers and words of encouragement mean so much right now.

Here’s one sneak peak picture of the back game room at the #funcycledstays airbnb that also has a pull out bed for more of your friends to stay with you. We used a vintage dusty rose couch (thank Monica), a coffee table made from old repurposed wood, and modern pops of design with the funky rug and aztec pillow. :)

For this week’s makeover, I wanted to share a buffet that we recently redid for our store. Here’s the buffet before:

We painted with Benjamin Moore’s Kendall Charcoal, sanded the top and left it original, then we sprayed it with a protective clear coat. We also installed all new hardware. If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post.

Here are the after pictures:

This is available to purchase on our website, but you can check out new pieces on our For Sale page:

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

Posted on July 7, 2020July 7, 2020 by Sarah — 1 Comment

Modern Farmhouse Kitchen Design and Cabinet Painting

Hi Friends!

How was your holiday weekend? We had such a beautiful weekend. Last week, we were suppose to be on vacation for our family camping trip, but it was canceled because the camp site closed from COVID restrictions. We decided to hunker down and do long days at the new building trying to make good progress on the #funcycledstays airbnb. A big thank you to the friends, family, and neighbors who helped make it a fun week for my kids while we worked hard. Over the weekend, we unplugged and spent some much needed time relaxing with family. Kayaking, picnics, and lots of swimming. 💕

At #funcycledstays, we finished redoing the floors, painted almost all the walls, added new window trim, baseboard, and wood beams. We also painted new kitchen cabinets and ordered everything we need to do the finish work. We installed all new lighting throughout the space and that made the biggest difference in my opinion. I can’t wait to show it all to you! Here’s one sneak peak picture for now:

In this picture, you can see the window trim, barn wood, refinished floors, and baseboard. I also created a faux concrete wall straight ahead. I’m really happy with how that came out!

For this week’s makeover, I wanted to share a project for our client, Kelly, who asked me to design their kitchen, family room, dining room, living room, and then this week the exterior colors for their home, and entry way. I’ve so enjoyed working with her every step of the way and being able to see some of the progress last week was so fun!

Here’s the kitchen before:

During her 1 hour design consult, we picked out new flooring, lighting, colors for the cabinets and overall look for the room. She didn’t even need a design board for this room (other rooms we did a design board and I’ll share those more later).

We painted the cabinets with Benjamin Moore’s Advanced paint; color Simply White, sealed it with a water based protective clear coat, and added new hardware.

Ready for the afters?

Check out some fun new furniture for sale in our store now:

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

Posted on June 30, 2020June 29, 2020 by Sarah

Child’s Rocking Chair Makeover

Hi Friends!

How are you? I hope your weekend was sweet. The rain in NY slowed us down a bit which I think was a good thing. Our bodies needed one less busy day over the weekend. We’ve been putting in long hours from working on the airbnb which has been fun, but slower paced day felt really good on Sunday.

This week, I wanted to share with you a quick child’s rocker that is being kept in the family and passed from one generation to another. Patty is now passing this piece down to her expecting daughter for them to use for years to come.

I forgot to take a before picture of the rocking chair, but here are the afters!

We painted with Benjamin Moore’s Stonington Gray then we sprayed it with a protective clear coat. If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post.

This rocker was done as a custom order so it’s not available to purchase on our website, but you can check out new pieces on our For Sale page:

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

Posted on June 23, 2020June 22, 2020 by Sarah — 1 Comment

Modern Table Makeover – Tuesday’s Treasures

Hi Friends!

How’s your week going? We have been busy, busy over here! This weekend, John started refinishing the floors at the new #funcycledstays airbnb which means we are one step further on it. I did more painting with Harmony while Josh assembled furniture…. then he hid in the box to surprise us.

We also had a beautiful day as a family celebrating father’s day!

For this week’s makeover, I wanted to show you a table and chair set that didn’t go together, but we painted to work together and give one of our design clients a mid century feel on a budget.

Here’s the table and chairs before:

We sanded down the top of the table and stained it with Early American Stain by Minwax. We painted the base and the chairs with black enamel and clear coated the whole thing. If you want to see how we paint furniture, check out our How to Paint Furniture post. Here are the after:

This table was done as a custom order so it’s not available to purchase on our website or in our store now, but you can also check out even more new pieces on our For Sale page:

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

Posted on June 16, 2020June 15, 2020 by Sarah

Repurposed Idea House – Modern Farmhouse Bathroom Remodel

Hi Friends!

If you missed it, last week we announced that we purchased a building where we’ll be moving our FunCycled storefront at the end of the summer or early fall. We’re also planning to make the two bedroom apartment above the commercial storefront an airbnb so you and your friends can enjoy our sweet city in a comfy, urban, designer space. We asked our FunCycled fans to help us pick a hashtag to follow along as we redo it, and for people to tag us when they stay in the airbnb. Our favorite was #funcycledstays so be sure to follow that hashtag to keep updated on everything. Thanks for all your input!

This weekend we started painting the trim and living room area. Harmony and Josh have decided that their favorite way to help is with painting… it must be in their blood. 😉 So they were my painting buddies for the day and did a wonderful job.

Just before we closed on the new building, we pushed really hard to finish up one of the bathrooms in our Repurposed Idea House. We’ve been working on this bathroom since January and it’s been tedious; what feels like a forever job! We were thankful to have time to work on this project as a family during COVID though. If we didn’t have that time, it may have taken us all year. lol

Here are the photos before… we moved some things around so be sure to check out where this sink and toilet (peaking out just past the tub) are; those two things stayed in the same exact spot. The door and the bathtub moved.

This is while we were gutting everything:

We may get quite a few questions about the sink so I wanted to give you the details on that. We bought it at the Habitat for Humanity Restore and got it for a great price. Here’s where you could buy one new: Kohler Double Bathroom Sink. The only thing we didn’t know when we bought it was that the faucets for this are really expensive and the install is tricky. I could only find two different style faucets and both were in a silver finish. I wanted black or gold and we even went to a local company who can order all different plumbing parts and they couldn’t find a different style. So I went with these Kohler Faucets and then painted them. We’ve painted faucets in the past and they’ve held up really well so we decided to risk it. I was nervous about that because they were so expensive, but my whole theme for the space had no chrome in it at all. We used a metal primer and then a metal spray paint in a matte black. It seems to be holding up well so far. With the cost of the faucets and the time it took to install, I’d probably pass on this sink if I had a choice again, BUT the finished product is really swoon worthy and it works out well because just below that sink is a radiator that we didn’t want to cover up.

I wanted white and black contrast in this space, but I also wanted to bring in bright pops of colors. I did that with an old china cabinet that I painted a grassy green.

We went with large subway tile in the shower to mix it up from the traditional subway tile size. Then we installed a beautiful rain shower spigot. We bought our Kohler tub from the Habitat From Humanity Restore (trying to reuse as much as we can instead of buying new). Another thing that I learned was that you can buy recessed lighting with a fan in it for bathrooms. I didn’t want one of the lights that have fans because I have another light right near it and so many of them are ugly. You can see the one we bought here: Recessed Fan and Light Combo

One tricky thing about decorating this room was that no stores were open. So I really had to be creative; pulling things from all around my house and the FunCycled store of course. My nephew Caleb came by and did the decorating part with me. We had such a blast! I plan to add some plants as well in this room.

After we pulled up the linoleum, we found huge hardwood flooring underneath. It had some damage, but we repaired it and we don’t mind an imperfect floor. It adds to the charm of this old house built in 1805. Some people have said we may not end up liking that. We filled all the seams between the wood with calk and then painted the floor with black floor paint and sealed with with a protective clear coat. We decided if we don’t like it in time, it’s an easy change out. So far so good though. In the winter, I’ll probably add a larger rug to make it warmer as well. Just haven’t done that yet!

One thing that is unique to this space, we took out the closet that was straight ahead in the before picture and installed an antique cabinet in the wall to act as the linen closet. This is one of my favorite parts.

I also love that we shiplapped part of the ceiling and then painted the other part black. The black ceiling made everything pop!

Wall color: Simply White by Benjamin Moore
Ceiling Color: Black by Benjamin Moore

Here are the afters for you!!

We would love to help you with your next interior design project through a virtual design consult or in person once the restrictions are lifted! Check out our Interior Design page for more information. You can also check out new pieces on our For Sale page:

Please sign up for our weekly newsletter by adding your email in the little box below my picture.

Happy FunCycling Friends,
Sarah ;)

Posted on June 9, 2020June 9, 2020 by Sarah — 4 Comments

FunCycled’s New Building and an Airbnb Coming Soon

Hi Friends!

How are you doing? We have some exciting news! Last fall, John and I looked at a building that we had actually looked at years ago. We loved it then, but it needed a lot of work… more than we could do at the time so we passed on it. We’ve been casually keeping an eye out for a building in Troy that we could use as a store with a parking lot, but also really wanted to do an airbnb, too. We’ve wanted to be able to create a beautiful space for our FunCycled friends from around the world to visit our beautiful city in addition to having a permanent store space in Troy with parking.

We were suppose to close on it the week that everything was put on PAUSE because of COVID. Then life stood still for a bit… we didn’t know what to expect. We felt like it was important to wait until June to close on the building. Both financially and so we could work in it ASAP once we closed.

This was the morning that we bought it… exactly one week ago today!

Our plan is to move the FunCycled store to the 1st floor of this building. The floors above it make up a 2 bedroom apartment that we are planning to create a one of a kind airbnb in. We’re planning to use repurposed furniture and decor as much as we can throughout the space. We may even make all the furniture in the apartment available for purchase as well. Comfy, refined, urban and a big enough to bring friends. It’s going to be so adorable! I’ll be sharing the pictures of the process and more info on renting it as we go along.