Some days are just meant to be good. You wake up, having had a great night's sleep, and things just fall into place. If you're lucky this happens on your birthday - like what happened to me this morning. Yep, another candle was added to the cake today. So what's this got to do with Kartell? Well, I stepped out the front door of the apartment and saw a spectacular dawn then about 100 metres down the road was a pile of furniture on the side of the road. This is fairly commonplace in Bondi, unfortunately. Most of the time it really is rubbish - completely unsalvageable. But this morning I spotted two Kartell Componibili units languishing on their sides. I prayed they would still be there when I got back - and they were. It was like Bondi was giving me a birthday present. Yippee. The only problem is that they have gone a little yellow. Does anyone have any tips for how to restore them to their 1969 glory?
Image courtesy of Apartment Therapy
4 comments:
awesome find!!!!!!! I'd just repaint cause that just seems easier to me! Maybe some laminate paint or that stuff you use to recoat your fridge/whitegoods when it's been chipped... If all else fails, a few cans of glossy spraypaint should do the trick..
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Happy Birthday for yesterday Natalie. What a fab find!
Unfortunately I doubt if you will be able to do much with yellowed-white plastic, most likely resulting from heat, age and sun exposure. The only thing I can recommend is painting over it by using a special plastic primer first and then a plastic bonding paint or it will flake.
Hey Natalie! Happy belated birthday! What a fantastic find! Hmm.. the yellowing is a tricky one. My fella (who knows a bit about furniture things) says option 1 is looking into getting a 'cut and polish' product from an auto wholesaler and experimenting with that on the underside. He reckons the yellow is probably quite superficial, and maybe taking the top layer off in this way would get rid of it. Then you have to buff and polish it back to glossy. Option 2, if the yellowing goes too deep, is to look at getting the whole unit two-pack painted professionally. They do such a good job and would make it look like new... much better than trying to spray it yourself (bit pricier though!). Hmm... hope that is helpful-ish. I just bought the latest Real Living by the way... it's such a great issue! The food styling is stunning in the Indian food feature. Also I am drooling over your stylist Alice's home.. ahh. Gorgeous work! :) Lucy x
Thanks so much for all the suggestions. I attacked the piece on the weekend with good old-fashioned elbow grease, gumption and bleach and seemed to have worked miracles on it. It's still a little yellow but not so patchy anymore. And at the moment I've got it next to my sofa, which is cream, so seems to fit in quite well. Phew! I really didn't want to spray-paint it unless I had to as I felt I was going to be destroying a design classic.
Thanks, everyone!
Natalie
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