Episode 3 Money for Nothing

How do you make money for nothing?

The answer could be hiding in the 20 million tonnes

of household waste we throw out every year.

Before you throw that away, is there any chance

-I can have a quick chat to you about it?

-Yeah, sure.

That's why entrepreneur Sarah Moore wants to get

her hands on things before they hit the skip.

I am a passionate buyer, maker and user of old stuff.

And I've turned that passion into a moneymaking business.

I turn old stuff into new stuff and sell it for a profit.

Sarah is ready to sift through as many boots and bin bags

as she needs to...

Look at that absolute box of joy. These are just fantastic.

..in her search for tip treasure.

We've got to be able make something out of that, haven't we?

And with some of the country's elite designers and makers...

-I've got a little something for you.

-I thought you might.

Oh, this is a hard one!

..she can transform her finds into desirable...

Oh, my word.

..beautiful...

Oof!

-..valuable...

-Cher-ching!

..and hopefully saleable items.

Well, I love this, so I would really like to have it.

If Sarah is successful, then she can hand the profits back

to the very people who had no idea

there was cash to be made from their trash.

That is incredible, isn't it?

The Bredbury recycling centre in Stockport near Manchester.

Every year we throw away ten million pieces of furniture

at centres like this.

Most ends up in landfill, but some could be reused.

There is tonnes and tonnes of rubbish coming through this place every day.

And I'm a woman on a mission.

I'm out there to find those little pieces

that are worth their weight in gold.

Sarah has special permission to scout these skips,

so please don't go raiding your local recycling centre.

-That's seen some fun, then?

-It has.

She's searching for three pieces which, once reworked and sold,

will produce a payout for their original owner.

Copper is very on trend, you know that? What would you make out of it?

-Some skis.

-Skis?

-Yeah.

Not sure about the skis.

But I don't want to SNOW on anyone's parade!

-Looks like Sarah may be off to a flying start.

-Is this going?

-It is.

-She's spotted John,

who is off-loading a big old item of furniture.

-It's really heavy.

-It is.

-Was it yours or...?

-It was actually a great-aunt of my wife's.

Wow, that's brilliant. Lovely.

So it looks like it's got some Bakelite handles on it,

so it's obviously got some age to it, hasn't it?

-I would say it's sort of turn of the century kind of thing.

-Brilliant.

And so what was your wife's aunt's name?

-Oh, gosh, I forgot!

-Something like Maud or Audrey, isn't it?

-You've put me on the spot now! I've forgotten.

-Come on, John!

-Mary. It was Mary.

-Mary.

Fantastic. Well, if you don't mind us taking Mary's chest of drawers away.

Of course. I would much rather it was put to some good use

-than get thrown away on the tip.

-I absolutely love it.

I think it's got real substance to it.

Shall we just pop...? That way. That'd be fab. Thank you.

Great Aunt Mary's chest of drawers

could have major profit potential.

Good work, Sarah.

If we just pop it... I'll just go in here with it.

That'll be great. Thank you.

Getting a hand with the heavy lifting. Genius!

What a great old piece of furniture.

It's obviously got some history to it. It's not in perfect condition.

There's a massive split all down the side here.

And there's a few chips off the corners of it.

But this is a solid, heavy - it's really heavy - piece of furniture.

Something really good to work with.

And Sarah's enthusiasm has got a cabinet-maker John thinking.

Personally, if I was to do something with it, I would strip it,

seal it, wax it, put new handles on. And just...

Because it's a good, solid piece of furniture, it can be reused.

If we just restore this, I think it would look lovely.

But I think we can probably push it a bit further than that

and make something really special out of it.

So it's a really pleasing find.

And with radical furniture rejuvenator Zoe Murphy lined up

to take on the project, this could become a treasure chest.

Zoe is a screen-printing and textile-design queen.

Her bright, '50s-inspired designs

have taken the reconditioned furniture world by storm.

She even sells bespoke pieces to Liberty's of London,

and her work sells at a premium.

I work predominantly by putting images onto old pieces of furniture.

Everything I make is a lot of the time about fun.

I'm based in Margate.

I really kind of revel

in all the sort of faded glory and glamour of the place.

So I really believe that things should always be given

a second chance, and I try to see the good in stuff like that.

Let's hope Zoe sees the good in Great Aunt Mary's chunky chest.

Back at the recycling centre...

..and Sarah is searching out a second item.

Would it be OK to have a look through your rubbish? Would you mind?

-Not at all.

-Really?

-Yeah, sure.

Nearby, Neil has some interesting-looking kitchen worktops

destined for the skip.

And he's roped in father-in-law Roy to help him out.

I'm just the odd-job man. I'm the guy who supplies the trailer

and the car to bring the rubbish to the tip.

-Do you mind if I have a look at your rubbish?

-No, no, help yourself.

-New kitchen, is it? Old kitchen?

-Well, it's part of...

We've just put a new kitchen in.

-Right.

-And it's what's actually left over.

-Really? So you're getting rid of that bit?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-It's heavy.

-Don't worry. I'm not going to touch it. I was just...

Just looking at it.

Would it be something that I might be able to work with, or...?

Well, yeah. When we put it in I thought, "Crikey, it's a shame to throw it away, but..."

-Oh, you've got more of it!

-Yeah, yeah.

Fantastic. This is my lucky day.

Just here would be lovely. Thank you.

That's amazing. It's got a lovely, luxury feel to it.

I bet your kitchen looks great, doesn't it?

-Does your kitchen look good, Neil?

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

These worktops are sometimes known as engineered stone,

which is essentially ground-up stone,

in this case marble bound together by resin.

Is there any care that they've told you about using with it?

-It's man-made, so it's a resin.

-OK.

So you polish it all up, polish all the joints out of it.

-It's a bit like Corian.

-That's what I was thinking.

Fantastic. I don't know what I'm going to do with it now.

These big chunks of it make it really useful. That's brill.

Thanks ever so much.

And straightaway you can see that these could be made into...

um, er...

Neil, Roy?

-I have no idea.

-Make a desk out of it.

-No, I don't know.

-Make some chopping boards out of it.

-Yeah, chopping boards, yeah. Yeah.

-But the big piece, that might do for a worktop somewhere.

-Yeah.

In a small kitchen. Maybe. I don't know. Don't know.

And Sarah has got her thinking cap on, too.

It's really heavy, it's really chunky. It feels...

It's got a cold, stone-like feeling to it.

So that makes it quite appealing.

Are there are a couple of side tables there?

Is that something that goes in somebody's garden

on a really cool pair of legs.

Perhaps reworking this man-made marble is a job for a woman.

And if anyone can re-purpose this surface,

it's artist blacksmith Bex Simon.

Bex's mastery of some of the toughest materials around

allows her to create original,

organically inspired designed pieces.

And, although it can be hot, heavy work,

it can also be truly rewarding.

This sort of thing is quite new to us,

cos we normally work on a commission basis.

So to be presented something

and turn it into something else is quite exciting for us.

So I like the challenge.

And I'm really interested to see what she's found

and what we can do to it, so, yeah, it'll be good.

Let's hope that the man-made marble sparks Bex's imagination,

providing a searing profit for Neil and Roy.

With two items allocated to those clever craftspeople,

Sarah is back, searching the site for something of a personal project.

Yeah, I don't know whether I'd be able make something or not.

It's really... I think I might struggle to do something with it.

-Thank you ever so much for your time.

-OK. No problem.

So therapeutic.

As therapeutic as this may be,

I don't think there's money to be made in broken crockery.

And, at the other end of the dump,

Joanne has some old dining chairs that catch Sarah's eye.

-You've got a couple of them? You've got three?

-Yeah, there's about three.

Fab. I'd love to have a look at all three.

I'm just trying to work out how old they are. So these...

Yeah, I think these are quite interesting, because we've got three of them.

That's fab, that's brilliant. Thank you.

-And what else have you got? Dolls in there as well?

-Yeah.

A friend gave us some. And I gave them to my granddaughter

-and she was scared of them.

-Oh, really?

-That one.

That one, she was really scared of that one.

You can probably see why, can't you? From a child's point of view!

Wow. I think those we can't do much with.

But I think the chairs might be worth...

If I could do something with them, is it all right to keep in contact

-and show you what I did with them and that kind of thing?

-Yeah.

-Yeah?

-Fab.

-So you're going to restore things like that, is it?

Yeah. And these have got a recognisable retro style to them.

So if somebody is doing up their house and they want it

to have a 1950s look, 1960s look,

then people are trying to buy up things like this

to complete their look.

So, er... They might...

It would be really interesting to see what you could make

out of something like that.

Well, I think it will only ever be a chair,

but it might just be...you know, just modernised a bit.

If these chairs scrub up well,

Joanne could be sitting pretty with a profit.

I don't think there'd be any value in them, as they are, no.

But if she does 'em up, then sells them, good on her.

Well done for working hard on 'em.

I wish I had that talent to be able to do it. And the time.

I'd love to give them a new lease of life.

I'm thinking strip off this tired old Dralon

and put something really bright and beautiful on their seats.

It would be really great if, after a little makeover,

we might be able to get over £50 each for these beauties.

And after we've taken out some expenses,

I reckon £100 to hand over - that would be great, wouldn't it?

Now Sarah's designers each have their restoration projects.

Zoe will reimagine John's chest of drawers.

Bex will cook up something fantastic

with Neil and Roy's kitchen worktops.

And Sarah will set about Joanne's old seats,

hopefully ending up with something sensational.

I've saved three fabulous pieces here today.

And I'm going to make lots of money from them. I hope!

It's back to the sunny seaside town of Margate

where furniture design guru Zoe is poised to discover

just what it is that Sarah wants to get off her chest.

I'm really excited, because Sarah is bringing along

a piece of furniture for me to have a look at.

I'm thinking it probably will be something that is really well made

but definitely shabby and needing some care and attention.

So that should be good. I trust her.

Do you?

Yeah, I think so.

-Hiya.

-Hiya, how are you doing?

-I'm really well.

-How are you?

-Good. Good to see you. Now, don't look.

I don't know if you're going to like it or not.

-It's massive!

-It's really heavy as well. Are you all right to just help?

-Yes.

-Bring it in out...

-Oh, my goodness.

-It's so heavy.

-What a monster!

-So someone was throwing this away?

-Yeah, yeah.

-Oh, why?

Who did it belong to?

I think the guy said he'd had it in his garage for ages.

He'd been storing things in it, and he was a cabinet-maker.

-Had he made it?

-No, no. I think it had just been in his family.

I actually really like it. It looks really good quality.

It's got all the dovetail joints and everything, so it is a solid piece.

I had all sorts of ideas, but I've just seen one of your new pieces.

It's just blown away all the thoughts I had about it.

So I'd really like to hear what you think you could do with it.

It's really big, but it looks really well made.

I love padding drawer linings with fabric

or bright-coloured patterned papers and boards

and creating almost like oversized treasure chests.

Have you had any initial thoughts about what style of pattern

or what kind of thing we could use for it?

In here is the beginnings of a bit of an illustration

about a slightly more traditional, more Arts & Crafts,

sort of heritage designs that could go onto a piece like this.

Masculine and kind of audacious and...and making a statement.

I think that looks fantastic.

I actually love the bird, I have to say.

-That looks quite cool on there.

-I think that'll be brilliant.

Big, bold, audacious floral prints.

New handles, new linings.

I'm sure when it's finished it's going to be the kind of piece

which would easily be able to DRAW a crowd.

It sounds like it's going to be a labour of love.

How much does that mean it's going to cost?

I think around about at the £900 mark for us

to work onto this, for how many days it takes,

do all of the design work, print all of those custom designs onto it,

reline everything and make it perfect, ready to go.

I think that sounds amazing,

cos I know it's going to be a huge amount of hard work.

Just lining A drawer takes a long time, doesn't it?

And to take on this, I think that's great.

£900 is certainly not pennies.

But you'd expect to pay top rates for Zoe's input

on a project of this size.

Wow, that girl has such a fantastic ideas.

The energy coming out of that studio is amazing.

And that chest of drawers is going to look a million dollars

when it's finished.

I'm actually quite fond of this.

I'm looking forward to lining all these different drawers,

plus a nice big surface area to get a gorgeous print onto as well.

So, yeah, I'm really looking forward to doing it.

Great Aunt Mary's sizeable chest of drawers

will take a sizeable budget to turn them from shabby to chic.

And with such a big spend,

Sarah will need to sell for more than £900 to make a profit.

From the seaside to the heart of the Surrey countryside,

with its rolling farmland, picturesque villages

and its...piles of rusting metal?!

Sarah reckons her newly acquired worktops are best in the hands

of Bex Simon.

Bex and husband Dave

create all manner of metal fixtures and fittings

in their blacksmith's workshop, and they simply love a challenge.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Sarah is going to bring today.

What do you reckon we're making? A coffee table? A chair?

A boat?

We think we're building a boat today!

Well, whatever you end up making,

she's hoping her man-made marble will float YOUR boat.

-Hiya.

-Hi.

Oh, both of you. How are you? Got a little something for you.

Let's have a look.

-Oh, wow.

-I've got quite a bit of it.

-Yeah.

-I've got three nice bits.

Brilliant, thank you. It's quite heavy.

-And you might be thinking it's not very metal.

-Yeah.

-It's very posh.

-Yes, it is posh. That's exactly what I thought.

So I was wondering about making some tables out of it with metal legs.

Oh, yeah, sure. How many pieces have you got?

I have got three... I think this...

I brought this one in because it was the smallest and the lightest.

-Shall I go and get the other bits?

-Let's have a look.

This material is a bit of a departure for metal-worker Bex,

but at least Sarah is looking for metal legs.

Tell me about, you know,

the bottom sort of frame that you had in mind, then.

I know you've got your really long pieces of metal.

It's a bit crazy to have the top

and then it's like screw up a piece of metal

so it...

um, does really weird things, and make legs out of it.

I think doing three of those, that is going to take us a long time,

cos to make it, you know, level and looking nice...

I mean, that could be quite good fun.

I'm up for that.

So, that's three tables with geometric metal frame legs.

Bex doesn't look convinced about the way forward,

but Dave seemed more decisive.

If it was between £100 and £150 per table...

If it's going well, we can, you know, really go to town.

-Yeah. You'd get more bends.

-You'd get more bends.

-If it's a nightmare, you know, we'll just simplify it.

-A lot.

We will just work with that budget.

I hope you haven't stuck your neck out, Dave.

And I hope it goes really well!

-No, it will be fine.

-Take care. Thanks ever so much. Bye!

You seem like you're going to enjoy this one.

Yeah, no. I've got a good feeling about this one.

-Uh-oh!

-Yes.

I've just buried it!

Oh, no, here we go! I'll get my coat!

I hope I haven't caused too much marital disharmony there.

Didn't seem like they were both thinking along the same lines.

So fingers crossed that's all all right.

I'm hoping with the marble and those really funky geometric shapes,

they should look really cool.

With an approximate cost of £150 each for three tables,

we are looking at a total bill of around £450.

Selling them as a matching set

could mean that Sarah might make a decent profit.

From the rural idyll that is Surrey,

we're shifting the action over to Sussex,

where it's time for Sarah to get busy with her very own project.

I've been dying to get started on these.

They look so dated at the moment, and I'm sure that if I sand them down,

I can make them look pale and modern,

and have a think about what to cover on that. They'll look great.

Sarah sets out by unscrewing those sad seats.

So this is not the first time that this chair has been re-covered.

You can see there's a nasty brown Dralon

that I'm thinking must be around 1980.

And underneath it the original vinyl

that would have been on the chairs when they were bought.

OK, so... That's how they would have been originally.

So that will be pretty easy to re-cover.

And these chair frames are really solid.

So we've got a great base to start with.

Just need to get sanding.

Wherever possible, it's a good idea

to sand along the grain of the wood,

as sanding across the grain can lead to unsightly scratches.

I've literally been sanding this down for five minutes,

and I think that the transformation is amazing.

It looks crisp and clean, fresh and expensive.

And an expensive look is just what we're after

if we are to pocket a profit.

Now, I'm thinking...

For the new covers of the chair,

I need to have something that is fitting with the frames

that I've created.

So I do have a couple of bits that are on era for this kind of thing.

Maybe that's a bit early, bit of 1940s.

That is probably more about me again. But that...

That might be really cool.

I bought this in a charity shop for £2,

so this is not going to cost me a lot of money.

That looks amazing.

That looks great. That is...

It's just different. It is almost geometric.

We've seen a lot of geometric shapes in furnishings recently.

It's really unusual. It's really bright and it's really commercial.

That could be the one, couldn't it? That could be the money-maker.

Looks like there's a bright geometric future ahead

for these chairs.

So all I've got to do now, I reckon,

is about an hour's worth of sanding for each chair,

pop some staples onto these

and then make my £150.

Piece of cake. Walk in the park. Work of a moment.

Work of a moment?

Well, better multiply that by three and crack on!

Using the existing seat pads means Sarah is spending

just £2 on that fab new fabric.

I smell a decent profit for these three beauties!

Meanwhile, in Margate,

Sarah left a tired old chest of drawers beside the seaside,

where Zoe is getting

this not-inconsiderable restoration project underway.

OK. Oh!

Still a monster thing.

I think we are probably going to take the lid off,

strip the whole thing back to see what kind of condition

the wood is underneath,

and then changing some of these handles as well.

These are kind of like plasticky, fake Bakelite ones.

I've noticed on all the drawers there's actually a keyhole

and a lock on every single one.

So, fingers crossed we'll be able to get these locks working again.

We need to get these panels off in order to access

the way to remove the lid.

I've had to do a lot worse to furniture in order to restore it,

would you believe?

So sometimes demolishing it, seemingly,

is the way that you can take it apart to get it back together again.

Here we go.

So from chest of drawers to jigsaw puzzle -

definitely not a project for the faint-hearted.

Zoe's next job is to strip the wood.

And for this she uses a professional paint and varnish remover.

I leave this for about a minute maybe.

Nice and thick.

And when it bubbles up...

it will have loosened all of the varnish.

Always, always wear heavy-duty, protective gauntlets

and a face mask when applying a chemical paint stripper.

The stripper is working perfectly!

It's lifting the varnish, which is really good...

although the wood underneath isn't amazing.

A lot of the damage and water marks are still there.

So I'm going to have to look at getting them out a bit as well.

That looks like it's been in someone's shed

and it's had a leak onto it or something like that.

With some of the heavy, dirty work out of the way,

Zoe can start thinking more

about the design stage of this rejuvenation.

Back in the blistering heat of the Surrey countryside...

..Bex and Dave are getting even hotter

under their respective collars

with Sarah's triple table challenge.

We're starting work on these slabs.

We're are going to make a couple of coffee tables

and a console table.

So we're just making a temporary desk outside, cos obviously

we will probably be working with some long rods and stuff.

So we're going to see if we can make all three right now.

Lengths of steel rod will form the table legs.

Once Bex cuts the rods down to manageable lengths,

each one will be bent into shape.

Bex starts work on the legs for the smallest table

by welding rods to a piece of steel plate.

That will just hold it in place.

What we'll do now is we'll sort of heat it and start bending.

The steel will start to become malleable

as its temperature increases,

and if you want to know just how hot red-hot is,

well, it's upwards of 500 degrees centigrade.

So this is the perfect job for this sort of weather(!)

Basically, I haven't drawn it out.

Again, it's going to grow organically.

And while Bex bends, Dave drills.

With the table designs developing organically,

this really is a case of trial and error.

It's all back to front.

I'm all confused!

It's making it so you look at it and you enjoy looking at it

rather than you feel uncomfortable looking at it.

At the moment I'm uncomfortable. But we'll sort it out.

It's part of the fun.

But now Dave has spotted a flaw in the smallest surface.

So how does that affect their plans?

What do you want to do about that?

You know, high-end table, chip in it.

It's not really...

If that one is chipped, find a bigger one.

We've got other ones over there.

Yeah, I know, but we've made that for this one.

With the smallest surface now chipped,

the guys decide to go for plan B

and try the biggest table on the existing legs.

It's running out of time and not having anything or, like,

slightly built and very botched,

which I would be really mortified at,

or trying to make something work and look nice, you know,

that a customer will, you know, like and still put in the house.

-So plan B.

-SHE LAUGHS

So, we're down from three tables to one.

Time to marry the largest tabletop to those spaghetti legs.

-I think that's our best...

-Bet.

-..option now.

-It looks better being a more contained...

-Yeah.

-..block within the table.

-Yeah.

Like I don't feel as annoyed with it, you know.

So that looks nice.

-Oh, I want a glass of wine tonight!

-SHE LAUGHS

Back at the barn in Sussex,

those seat covers are going from drab to delightful.

That's perfect. That's absolutely smooth, really tight.

If you're going to sit on that, that's not going to cause any problems.

So I'd say that's actually quite a professional-looking finish.

Well, we wouldn't expect anything less!

So I've finished the chair.

I've sanded it all over and I've waxed it down.

So you can see the grain of the beech coming out

and just the natural colour of the wood.

And I think it looks so much fresher than it did before.

These seats were in a sorry state.

But now they are a triumph in triplicate.

My £2 car-boot fabric, I think, has transformed these chairs.

It's now beautifully hard-wearing,

and sitting really well with this lovely grain up here.

In fact, I think they look like a million dollars.

And I'm only going to ask £150.

Sarah sanded these beautiful beech chairs

and spent a massive £2 on fresh fabric covers.

If she can shift them for £50 each,

there could be a very healthy profit.

Back at the dump, Joanne's chairs had seen better days,

possibly in the Swinging '60s.

But Sarah spotted their potential.

These have got a recognisable retro style to them.

So I'd love to give them a new lease of life.

I don't think there'd be any value in them, as they are, no.

But if she does 'em up and sells 'em, good on her.

Sarah invited retro furniture dealer Martin to check out her chairs.

So what did he make of them?

This is 1950s, '60s, and people love this look.

For Martin, these were a must-have for his shop in London.

Sarah has come back to Stockport to update Joanne

on her three forlorn chairs.

The refurb was inexpensive, so just how much profit has been made?

DOG BARKS

Got friends.

Hello.

-Hiya. Hello again. How are you?

-I'm fine, thank you.

I've got some pictures to show you of

your chairs that we found at the tip.

But I was trying to remember where you said they came from

-and their history.

-Oh, right.

Originally, they were my husband's before we lived together.

-I rubbed them down and did that to them.

-Wow, look at them!

They're dead bright. They were dead dull before.

They're really nice, they're really nice.

I don't think it'd go with my wallpaper, though.

-And it turns out that somebody did really like them.

-Oh, really?

And they were what they were looking for.

So I did actually make a profit.

-Oh, right.

-And that profit is for you.

-Wow.

-There's £100 there for you.

You're joking? I never expected that!

Sarah has only spent £2 transforming the chairs,

and she managed to negotiate a sale of £102 with Martin

so that she could hand over the full £100 to Joanne.

-What will you do with 100 quid?

-Well, we're going camping next week.

-So I think that'll cover the petrol.

-Fantastic.

-I hope you have a lovely time camping.

-Thank you.

-Thanks for doing that.

-I'll think of you.

-That's brilliant.

-Take care.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye!

I can't believe that the profit on them is £100.

That's... That's amazing. It's absolutely brilliant.

I really enjoyed working on those retro chairs,

and I love the idea that Joanne is going off to spend that money

on her camping holiday.

Sarah is back in magnificent Margate, where she left

furniture and fabric designer doyenne Zoe with a sizeable task.

Now, I left Zoe with a real challenge.

She had a big, broken, brutal-looking chest of drawers.

So I can't wait to see if she's managed

to bring that delicate Zoe magic to it.

Zoe took a tired, tatty old chest of drawers...

..and has created a stunning piece of bespoke furniture...

..with hand-printed surfaces, lovingly restored woodwork

and new fixtures and fittings.

I'm keen to know what she thinks about

the all-over print on the front,

because that's something a little different.

I don't normally do that,

but I loved making the pattern for them, so hopefully she'll love them.

-Hiya.

-Hello. How are you?

-Really well. How are you?

-Very good.

-It's amazing out there today.

-It is very nice.

Thank you for bringing the good weather to Margate.

-I have something to show you here.

-Is that it?

-Yes, it is.

-I can see it.

-Are you ready?

-Yeah.

SARAH GASPS

-What do you think?

-I think it's fantastic. What have you done?

-Is it paper? Is it...?

-This is all hand-printed onto the surfaces.

And this design has actually been made

-especially for this chest as well.

-It's bespoke.

Me pulling on all my textile design background.

It is transformed, isn't it?

It was never going to look like this, you know.

I can't believe you've done it. This interior is just inspired.

And I think when people open it, it will be such a surprise.

-Does it work?

-Yes.

I hated the idea of passing on something that had a function

but that was redundant.

So I jemmied out all of the locks

and took them up to my local locksmith,

who kind of winced a bit

when I said, "Can you fit some keys for this?"

But he did an amazing job,

and actually we've got two keys that fit every single one.

And they've even got little tassels on as well, so...

I know that we had quite a big budget on this.

I think we left you with £900 to play with. How has that come out?

Are we still on budget for that?

Yes, we're on budget, just.

I always seem to go a little bit over on things

that I'm really fond of. But, yeah, we are definitely on the 900.

I think it looks lovely.

And your finish is always surprisingly good

for what you can do with an old piece of furniture.

So... I don't know how you do it. But I'm so pleased that you do!

This restoration wasn't cheap.

But then, creating a unique design classic was never going to be.

Zoe's design and labour costs came in at a whopping £900.

So Sarah needs to beat that to make a profit.

Back at the dump, this old chest of drawers had seen better days

and was on the brink of oblivion,

although cabinet-maker John did recognise it as being

a fine bit of furniture.

I would strip it and seal it, wax it, put new handles on. And just...

Because it's a good solid piece of furniture, it can be reused.

But it's fair to say that Zoe has completely transformed this item.

And it was sold to Janet at Margate's Lombard Street Gallery.

Sarah's visiting John to let him know the fate of his furniture.

But with costly reimagining, is there any profit in the air?

-Hi there. Hi. I'm Sarah.

-Hi, Sarah, how are you? I'm Charlotte.

-Hi, Charlotte. Hello again, John.

-Hi, Sarah. Nice to see you again.

-Are you well?

-Fine, thank you.

-Just thought I'd come back

and catch up with you about your chest of drawers.

I've got some pictures here.

-Oh, wow.

-Wow!

-Do you like it?

-I do, I really do. That's amazing.

Zoe works with pattern and screen printing

and lots of different techniques

and really breathes new life into furniture.

I wouldn't have thought to put those colours with that either.

It's lovely.

So it was always our intention to try

and sell your chest of drawers after we had done that to it.

-So we did sell it and we made £100 profit on it.

-Really?

-Wow.

And I've got that here for you. Who gets the money?

Me! Me! Thank you so much.

Our absolute pleasure. So what do you think you might do with £100?

-I think we may go out tonight.

-I think we might go out tonight.

-What do you think?

-Something to eat and a drink.

-Definitely, definitely, yeah.

-Lovely. Well, I think Aunt Mary...

-You can raise a toast to Aunt Mary.

-We will.

We'll raise a glass to her tonight, definitely.

-Thank you for that.

-Lovely. Really nice to see you.

Yeah, and you. I appreciate that. We'll have a few drinks tonight.

-I'll be thinking of you.

-Thank you, Sarah.

-Take care. Bye-bye.

-Bye.

-Bye.

So, Aunt Mary's drawers cost £900 to take them from dingy to desirable.

This allowed Sarah to achieve a sale price of £1,000,

which left a profit of £100 to be handed over to Charlotte and John.

What's done with it is something that we could never

have envisaged being done.

-We wouldn't have done that ourselves.

-Absolutely not.

-And the colours that were used...

-It looks fantastic.

Absolutely brilliant. Could never imagine that to look like that.

It was wonderful. Wonderful.

Well, that was a great reaction, and hardly surprising, really,

given that fantastic transformation of that old chest of drawers.

Back at Bex's forge,

the largest kitchen worktop cut-off has now been transformed

into an eye-catching, iconic coffee table

with the best-looking yellow legs in town,

setting off the composite marble

and creating a unique designer piece.

I'm here to pick up my white marble coffee table.

I've only got one and I was hoping for three,

but there is a chance if it looks really good

that I'll still be able to make some profit out of it.

Bex and Dave are anxiously awaiting Sarah's arrival.

So how is this going to go, then? Tears, no tears?

-This is a "no tears".

-No tears.

Sarah asked for three matching tables with gilt legs.

So how will she feel about her single coffee table

with yellow metalwork?

-It's what she asked for, basically.

-Yeah.

But we have gone down to one. From three.

But it's a very good one rather than three slapdash...ones.

THEY LAUGH

But, no, it is good. It's worked out really nice.

It's a smiling table.

Hi, guys. What have you got there?

Do I want to see? Do I want to see?

Oh, wow!

Now, that is a real bit of fun, isn't it? It looks very cool.

Oh, that's mad under there, isn't it?

It's huge as well. I don't remember it being quite that big.

The finish is beautiful as well, isn't it?

It's worked out really nicely, that top.

Like with those lovely crisp edges.

It's really cool. I like the way all the angles change, wherever you go.

Yeah, it's organised chaos!

I think when you think it was literally about to be hoofed over

into a skip, I think you should be very proud

of what you've done with it.

You were quite enthusiastic about the work and you weren't,

so how did it work out in the end?

Well, you know, it was harder than we thought,

getting it so it's level and it works and everything like that.

So, you know, we wanted it to look right.

So, no, I think it's worked out really nicely.

So I know in our initial chat, we thought

we might really go for it for three tables, and that was at £150 a table.

How much are we looking?

Well, I think we were saying about 250 to cover this one.

I think that that just... It looks great, and at that money,

I think I'm really pleased with it.

-Yeah, brilliant. That's good. Another result.

-Another result!

I think it's so cool to see the transformation

of leftover kitchen scrap into fantastic designer coffee table.

And I think there's some money to be made out of it as well,

even though there's only one.

That did go well. So, phew.

-Yeah, another one down.

-Yeah.

# Another one bites the dust! #

I'm starting to get all singy again!

OK, we're down from three tables to one,

but the single coffee table has cost £250.

So can Sarah sell it for more than that and turn a profit?

Neil and father-in-law Roy took a trip to the tip

to jettison some offcuts from a new kitchen worktop.

Roy wasn't particularly inspired as to what they could become.

I have no idea. The big piece, that might do for a worktop somewhere.

-Yeah.

-You know, in a small kitchen. Maybe. I don't know. Don't know.

But Bex and Dave created an inspirational coffee table.

With a brand-new custom-made coffee table to sell,

Sarah decided that this piece should be sold to someone

with an eye for the unusual.

And London's department store for antiques, vintage and retro,

The Old Cinema, was just the place.

Sarah has travelled to Stockport to catch up with Neil,

from whose kitchen the spare worktop came.

She is here to show him what became of his kitchen cast-offs

and to hand over any profit.

-Hi, Neil, how are you doing?

-Not bad, and you?

-Yeah, very well.

-Nice to see you again.

-And you.

I've got a couple of bits to show you about

-what we did with that old worktop.

-Yeah.

We thought it would make a really lovely kind of luxury coffee table.

And we decided that it would look lovely

-if it had some really fine metalwork to make the legs underneath.

-Yeah.

And we wanted to make it into something quite interesting.

So I've got a little picture here to show you of how it ended up.

-This is how it ended up.

-Oh, that's all right, isn't it?

-Do you think so?

-It's nice, that.

-We sold your worktop-cum-table,

and after we'd paid Bex her expenses and all her time for doing it,

-I've got 75 quid here...

-Fantastic.

-..to give to you for your...

-for dropping it off at the tip.

-Thank you very much.

So, Neil's offcuts cost £250

for Bex and Dave to transform into this contemporary coffee table.

With a sale price of £325,

Sarah has achieved a profit of £75 to hand over to Neil.

-What would you do with 75 quid?

-Probably spend it on my daughter.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

-Has she got stuff on her wish list at the moment?

She's got all sorts on her wish list.

Well, thank you for being there that day

and dropping off your lovely worktop,

-and I hope your daughter enjoys what you buy for her.

-I'm sure she will.

-Thank you very much.

-Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

Another satisfied customer.

Today, all three saved items have made a profit.

From the three dated chairs spruced up by Sarah

to the drab drawers returned to former glories by Zoe,

and, finally, the composite marble worktop

transformed into the crazy-legged coffee table by Bex and Dave.

We're really on a roll.

That is three great transformations, and three chunks of cash handed over.

And all going to prove that just with a little ingenuity,

you really can make money for nothing.