Furniture restoration and learning to make your own curtains, quilts and soft furnishings can be one of the best ways of helping make your home a beautiful, unique space. Here are some of our favourite online and in-person courses to get you started with restoring your furniture and soft furnishings.
The best furniture and interiors restoration courses and workshops
How to make beautiful curtains with Gemma Moulton
Gemma Moulton’s company East London Cloth is one of the top soft furnishings makers in London, and in her first online course she guides participants through the basics of how to design, make and hang curtains. Set over five hours of video lessons, you’ll follow along with Gemma’s demonstrations as she shows you everything you need to know.
PRICE: £127
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Paint a Piece of Furniture: An Introduction to Chalk Paint
Over the course of a day, you’ll learn all about chalk paint from the master of chalk paint herself: Annie Sloan, along with her team of trained experts. You’ll be introduced to different paint finishes and how to best apply paint to pieces of furniture from different eras of history. Plus, you’ll receive 10% off any Annie Sloan paint that you purchase on the day of the course from Minerva Workshop.
PRICE: £180
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Guide to Contemporary Quilting with Julius Arthur
Contemporary textiles designer Julius Arthur guides you through this traditional craft form, teaching the basics on creating patterns, patchwork and applique techniques. He’ll bring the art form into the 21st century as he introduces participants to contemporary styles of patchwork wall hangings and applique cushions. His 27 video lessons will be broken up into 5 to 15-minute episodes so you can take the course at your own pace and experiment with the different styles of quilting as you go.
PRICE: £97
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Furniture Upcycling Workshop with Hannah Wiles
If you’re based in Manchester, Reloved Upholstery is a creative space and studio that’s definitely worth a visit. The team offers a series of courses on upholstery and upcycling. This particular workshop is hosted by fine artist Hannah Wiles. Bring along a small piece of furniture and work on it from start to finish, learning how to prep, sand, paint and finish an item using modern paint and upcycling techniques. The day-long course is a great introduction to furniture upcycling and will set you up with the tools to go and work on even more pieces around your home.
PRICE: £110
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Furniture Design for Beginners
New designers or those wanting to take the next steps in their designing journey might be interested in this online short course from Central Saint Martins. Over six weeks, you’ll join other budding furniture designers and tutors online to learn about how to produce scale drawings and test your furniture designs using state-of-the-art modelling. This intensive course will set you up as a furniture designer to work on pieces in your own home and others, as you leave with a finished scale prototype model of your own design that you could add to a portfolio or continue to develop.
PRICE: £480
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