Episode 16 Money for Nothing

Ooh, just before you throw those away...

How do you make money for nothing?

-Can I have it?

-You can have it, yes.

The answer could be hiding in the 30 million tonnes of household waste

we throw out every year.

Now, this is one seriously unusual tip find.

That is why entrepreneur Sarah Moore

wants to get her hands on things before they hit the skip.

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

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

I make new stuff out of old stuff and sell it for profit.

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

These were going to be thrown away, seriously?

I love it, love it, love it.

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

It looks brand-new.

..valuable...

You are joking?

..and hopefully saleable items.

That is a triumph!

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 amazing!

Today, Sarah finds herself in Altrincham, near Manchester,

home to this delightful recycling centre.

A stool that's not cool,

a three-piece suite that is anything but,

or a cabinet and that's just had it,

can all be transformed into stunning items

with that wow factor to make some money for nothing.

Yes, it's Sarah's mission to seek out two items that can go

from unwanted and tired to sought-after and desired.

Sarah, queen of tips.

Her Majesty has special permission to rummage here

and it's not long before something in Andrew's boot

gets the royal seal of approval.

What else have you got in there, then? Got the kitchen sink...

-You're chucking those out?

-I was going to weigh them in.

What does weighing them in...?

-I'll take them to the local recyclers...

-Yeah?

And they'll give me money for them as scrap metal.

Andrew's well aware that scrap metal merchants locally

will only offer around 5p a kilo.

So with that lot of old-school science lab stools,

he could make...ooh, 50p!

I love them.

So he might just be better off taking a gamble on Sarah

and her moneymaking plans.

Where are these from, then?

I used to work in a school - they were original lab seats,

-I think they were.

-Yeah, yeah.

They're the same, they're just rusty.

-We don't mind a bit of rust.

-No?

-No, they're lovely.

-So what will you do with these?

-I'm not going to tell you.

But I'm good to come back and show you. Brilliant.

I shall take those away.

-I am really chuffed with those, thanks ever so much!

-All right.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye!

I'm pretty sure Andrew won't regret giving those stools to Sarah

rather than selling them for scrap.

But does he think Sarah and the stool will have a good chemistry?

You can use the tubular steel in those shapes and weld them

together to make all sorts of endless possibilities.

Hmm... Not very comfortable at the moment, but one day

these stacking stools are going to be fantastic again.

There's seven of them, so there's money to be made here.

We just need to find the right person who loves this retro look

to update them. And I think I know who that is.

Say hello to Josh and Oli, designer makers,

business partners and best friends.

These boys use natural and recycled materials to create

handcrafted furnishings and high-end interior pieces.

We kind of joined forces in 2013 and started working together.

The best thing about working here is probably when you have a new idea

for something and you can just kind of come in,

you've got all the tools you need,

you can sit down with your sketchbook.

I mean, the feeling that you get

when you make something actually original,

and it's come from your mind and you then take that idea

and bring it into the physical world, yeah, it's an amazing thing.

I just hope that amazing feeling

will extend to her newly acquired science lab stools.

That's one item in the bag,

and the next item she finds will be all hers.

What people throw away drives me nuts.

See, wing nut, get it?

Will you get on with it?!

Sure enough, she soon spots Les, whose boot full of bags

is like a lucky dip to our Sarah.

So talk me through what's in here. Anything I might be interested in?

-What's in there?

-Haven't got a clue.

Here you are. Just take it out and have a look.

-I might like some of this stuff.

-It's up to you, love.

-You can take what you want.

-These are quite sweet.

-What's that?

Oh, the coat hangers.

Only Sarah could get so excited about a load of old hangers.

Hopefully, she can find something just a bit more interesting.

There seems to be a coat hanger theme going on here.

-Well, it looks that way, doesn't it?

-Oh, my word, more?

Ridiculous!

Les is sorting through his recently departed uncle's belongings.

-How old was he?

-He was 90-odd.

And he just loved hoarding things, did he?

-Well, that's what people do, isn't it, duck?

-I do.

Les isn't one for standing round chatting, so it's up to Sarah

to see if she can dig out anything other than hangers.

Oh, there goes Les.

It's like being underneath a Christmas tree here.

There you go, kids.

Bags of hangers! Merry Christmas!

Lovely. Thank you very much for letting me have a little rummage.

If I find anything interesting, can I keep in touch?

-You do what you want.

-Oh, lovely!

Les clearly has a lot to get through,

so Sarah's grabbed a few choice bags for a longer rummage on her own.

Oh, wow! Look in here.

Let me guess - more hangers?

Metres and metres of old fabric.

It's quite narrow, that means it's old.

Anything that's 30 inches wide, old fabric, is sort of 1940s,

from when they made things on the narrow loom.

But I think there's huge potential here to turn a profit.

And I'd love to have a go at making some projects out of this.

With that, Sarah has both her items.

Josh and Oli will experiment with Andrew's science stools

and Sarah will go the extra yard

with the metres and metres of Les's fabric.

Today, I managed to gather yet another unusual hoard of items

which I think, once re-imagined,

stand a real chance of making some money for nothing.

In the West Sussex countryside, near the small village of Halnaker,

designers Josh and Oli are anticipating Sarah's arrival.

Just a little bit nervous.

We could have a situation in which we just don't know what we're doing.

She's usually got a knack

-of bringing some pretty crazy stuff along with her.

-Yeah, yeah.

I don't know what you mean(!)

I know loads of different people

who might be able to take on these stools.

But I'm after a really handmade quality to them

and some emphasis on craftsmanship.

Hello?

-Hiya! Look what I've got!

-Wow.

-There's good news - there's more, hold on.

-OK, cool.

-Nice.

-I've got seven.

-OK.

Are you bragging or complaining, Sarah?

What do you think of them?

-I think they're great, yeah.

-Yeah? First impressions, all right?

-It's really nice.

-I mean, all they need is just some freshening up

-and some nice wooden tops.

-I think that's the key, nice wooden tops.

I was thinking that you might just put a bit

of recycled old plank or something.

Charming! To be fair, Sarah, you did bring recycled old ironmongery.

So I'm sort of hoping that they would look really lovely

and high-end and somebody wants to buy them to go around their...

breakfast bar or something like that.

Well, she's ambitious, I'll give her that.

I think the contrast between the old flaky paint and rusty metal

and a new sort of polished hardwood top,

I think that would look really smart.

I would probably have one of those in my kitchen diner or whatever.

Well, funny you should say that, you may be able to.

Because there are seven here and, from my experience,

things normally sell better in pairs.

So I was thinking maybe we should just do six of them.

Hear that, Josh?

Just doing six out of the seven stools leaves a set of spare

dirty, rusty legs for you! You lucky fella!

So what wood would you use?

I would say we would go and buy some new planks,

maybe walnut or oak, sycamore, maple?

I don't know... Yew? That's pretty crazy.

Easy, tiger! You're not on Name That Tree.

I'm really happy for you to get to the wood yard,

see what looks best and just go for it.

So that'll be the stool tops looking lovely,

with carefully selected hardwoods.

But surely those rusted legs will need a lot of work?

Whenever you put new stuff and old stuff together,

if you keep it quite smart,

then you can get away with having a bit of rust.

It's going to be cheaper than if you have to spend hours

polishing each frame, isn't it?

She's always got her eye on the bottom line.

Speaking of which...

Money, though. How much is it going to cost?

I would say we could probably get the tops for £15 per top.

And I mean, if we don't spend too long on the frames,

just maybe a coat of lacquer or wax or something...

45 a stool, then?

-£45 each gives me a nice margin to make a bit of money on them.

-OK?

-Yeah.

-45?

-We'll try and sort that them.

-Done deal.

Excellent! I think they're going to look smashing.

That's a fantastic reaction.

I can't wait to see half a dozen beautiful stools

that are really fit for purpose using some lovely new materials

to make them just look really crispy. Perfect.

After a thorough inspection, Josh and Oli are nearly on the same page.

-I think they've got a lot of potential...

-Just imagining them

-with a nice walnut top or something.

-I like them as a range, though.

-The idea of having a different top on each stool.

-On each one?

I reckon. I think that'd be really cool.

Well, I'm sure they'll have worked it out by the next time we see them.

Sarah's looking for a set of six stools at a cost of £45 per stool

for the wood and Josh and Oli's labour,

making a grand total of £270.

But will those rusty legs undermine the sumptuous wooden tops

that they have planned?

At her home in Sussex, our material girl Sarah's itching to get started

on that bundle of old cloth she unravelled earlier.

Having a whole bundle like this is really exciting.

And it's really lovely stuff.

So I'm planning to turn this lot into fantastic scarves,

those big wraparound ones that are really commercial at the moment.

First she carefully measures the... RECORD SCRATCH

I'm just going to make up the size, there's just so much fabric here.

Oh, no, my mistake.

First she grabs some scissors,

makes an educated guess and starts cutting.

Perfect.

Oof! Lucky guess!

And after another hour or so,

she's very accurately chopped up the lot.

Right, so there's 15 scarves here.

So I'm going to get these through the washing machine

and then get them dyed.

I can't wait to see what these look like in different colours.

Sarah's using off-the-shelf cold water dyes.

With just some water and salt,

you can create vibrant colourfast tones.

You can dye pretty much any natural fabric with these powders.

Come to help?

She is aiming for a range of vibrant spring colours,

some of which are working really well.

That's looking hot.

Others, less so.

That's so not blue. It's supposed to be ocean blue.

As it happens, I quite like the purple. It's going to be all right.

Time for green.

I'm not sure I'm quite ready for tropical green.

It's really green.

Sarah adds a little yellow dye for a less Incredible Hulk

and more halcyon springtime feel.

Now, that's a proper spring green.

Kind of looks like moss.

Bramble's adding her own distressed look.

Make yourself at home on the silk, Bramble.

That's how it's done commercially, you know!

After a quick dry and iron, it's time for the fiddly bit.

So this is where the fun really begins.

Lots of little details on it.

Go to town with tassels and ribbons

and make them all have their own personality, really.

Sarah's going to roll the edges of the scarves

and add some colourful embellishments.

Snip little sections...

So they're about that long,

wrap it really tightly round and then tie it.

And then I can just sew a little line of those

along some of the ends of the scarves.

I think this is going to take ages.

But all these fantastic colours together,

I think they're going to sell.

That's one tassel done. Just another 300 or so to go.

If only Bramble could lend a paw.

Sarah's spent just £10 so far on these three packs of dye.

But with so much sewing to get through,

she'll have to enlist some help,

which will all add to her costs.

Just down the road, Josh and Oli are making a start

on the rusty legs for the set of six old science stools.

Should hopefully be quite a simple project.

What we are going to do is try and leave the paint on there

and just take off the rust,

and hopefully get some really nice patina on the steel.

Without further ado,

Josh and Oli break out the power tools

to buff up their old metal.

This disc is just going to remove everything.

Yeah, I mean, the wire brush...

is a bit more gentle, so maybe that's the way to go.

But nothing is working.

So I've tried it on the paint, and it's just taken that off as well.

Yeah, you've gone pretty heavy on that.

I'll have to try something different.

They put down the drills and are rubbing the legs down

with acetone and abrasive pads.

Finally, they have the desired effect.

Now I'm just putting on some furniture wax.

It'll make it look a lot better and feel kind of silky smooth as well.

It's looking good now.

Some bits are really nice. Like, see here, you've got the paint

and the little bits of metal where it's still slightly rusty,

and then you've got the fresh steel again.

Yeah, really happy with that. I think that's turned out well.

They've achieved the Holy Grail of the clean-dirty look.

Well played, lads. Now for the stool tops.

Josh has secured a pile of English hardwoods.

We are going to put a different slab of wood on each of the stools.

So we've got oak, sycamore, that's a bit of yew.

This is London plane.

That's ash.

And this bit's English walnut.

And we're slightly worried about the English walnut,

because it's got a bit damp.

Hopefully that's all good inside.

Let's have a look, shall we?

Josh cuts a likely-looking section from the main piece.

And it promptly splits. Ah.

Obviously we've lost quite a big chunk there.

It's just a case of trying to get a big enough piece

in order to make a stool top out of it.

Happily, there's just enough left.

Josh gets the wood down to the right thickness,

still hoping that it holds together.

It's a beautiful bit of wood.

It is, er, full of character, as you can see.

If by character, you mean it's got large cracks in it, Josh.

We'll be able to make a feature out of the splits and stuff like that.

Right...

While Josh finishes that piece of troublesome walnut,

Oli makes a start on the next piece.

-This is yew wood.

-ME wood?

-And everyone goes, ME wood?

-Would I? I would.

It's not you wood. It's yew wood.

I WOULD woodwork with yew wood, would you?

Enough! It's just a type of tree.

While Oli tackles that yew, Josh puts the first stool together

using that filled and polished up English walnut.

But will all that lovely wood be enough

for that high-end sheen Sarah's after?

It's one down, five to go.

OAK-ay, it's PLANE to see that there's lots syca-MORE for YEW to do.

Crack on.

Sarah's back at home working hard to get those scarves finished.

Having already tussled with her tassels for hours on end,

Sarah's bitten the bullet and enlisted help.

She's roped in her sometime assistant Ian, among others,

to get them all done.

As she's aiming for a high-end product

and a high-end price tag to match, she is confident that spending a few

more pounds on labour won't take too much of a dent out of the profits.

-Put a tassel on each corner.

-Beautiful.

So what do you reckon one can charge

for a hand-tasselled, hand-dyed scarf?

Sarah's chosen the best 12 pieces of material to finish,

and soon her tassel odyssey is complete.

Sarah found a jumble of discarded old material in a plastic bag

destined for the skip.

Now they're sumptuous and vibrant scarves

that wouldn't look out of place on a catwalk.

With a bit of dye, some leftover thread and a lot of hard work,

they've been transformed into a gorgeous spectrum

of springtime loveliness.

Well, I am really pleased with these.

They're bright, they're beautiful, and I think they're rather lovely.

And I've got a good idea about where to sell them.

I need to position them up here in terms of cost, because I want

them to be seen as a lovely, luxury item, which I think they are now.

At the recycling centre in Altrincham, Sarah met Les while

he was trying to throw out a load of his uncle's old coat hangers.

There seems to be a coat hanger theme going on here.

-Well, it looks that way, doesn't it?

-Oh, my word, more?

I know! Ridiculous.

Among all of Les's uncle's rubbish was a bag of old fabric.

Sarah chopped it up, dumped it into some dye

and tied on a load of tassels to create some sublime scarves.

They proved a perfect fit for Cowdray, Sarah's local farm shop,

who bought all 12.

The colours are absolutely beautiful. And the fact

they've been handmade from something that was otherwise going to be

thrown away really fits in with the ethos behind our business.

And they're already in demand...

-I love that deep purple.

-So do I.

..but not quite for what Sarah planned.

I'd use it for a tablecloth.

Each to their own.

Now Sarah's back in Altrincham with some loot for Les.

-Hi, there, Les.

-Hiya, love. Hiya. Are you all right?

-I'm very well, how you doing?

-Fine, duck, thanks very much.

You were hard at work last time I saw you.

-You had got loads of stuff coming to the tip.

-That's right.

So, some of it was yours, but some of it belonged to your uncle.

-Is that right?

-That's right, yes.

-In one of the bags, there was

actually some fabric that I was interested in.

I've got a picture of it to see if it's something you remember.

I don't remember, but it would be brilliant to see it.

That was in there, it was lots of really long strips of fabric.

-Some of it was silk.

-Fantastic.

So do you want to see what we did with it?

Yes, please, if you don't mind.

I would like to see what you've done with it.

-We turned them into scarves.

-It just shows you, doesn't it?

That's incredible, that. Oh, it's brilliant, that. That's fantastic.

You wouldn't think of doing something like that.

They looked really good.

And we took them to a local farm shop and they bought all of them.

-Did they really?

-Yeah, and they bought them at a profit,

-so I've got a little bit of money to share with you.

-Brilliant.

Well, you can't refuse that, can you?

I tell you what, I've actually got £160 for you.

Never?! Blimey, Charlie.

-Is that unexpected?

-That is unexpected, that.

I mean, just imagine how much more stuff just goes in that skip...

-in them skips every day.

-Don't say that, keeps me awake at night.

I bet it does. That is brilliant, that, love. Thanks very much.

What might you do with that?

Well, it's going to put a new exhaust on my car.

-2,500.

-Oh, seriously?!

-Serious money.

-That is a nightmare.

-Well, I'm...

-No, that's brilliant, that will go well towards it.

-Well, that's great news.

-Thank you very much. That's much appreciated.

I hope to see you again down there. See what else I can give you.

I hope the car's all right.

Oh, that'll be all right. Thanks very much.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye-bye now.

Well, I really enjoyed turning something plain and boring

into something luxurious and lovely.

And it sounds like the product came just in time for Les

with his massive car bill.

Sarah spent £10 on materials, and another 30 for additional labour.

12 scarves were bought by the farm shop at £200,

giving Sarah profit of £160 for Les.

Sarah's back in Halnaker to collect Josh and Oli's work.

So Josh and Oli have had science stools' bases

to convert into something saleable.

I hope they've really managed to pull it out the bag.

I think we've kind of delivered.

We've got six of our sort of favourite English woods

on the top there. It makes quite a cool set.

They are quite special. They need to go into a school of woodwork.

-That's the original habitat.

-Yeah.

Sarah left Josh and Oli with the rusty old legs

of some school science stools.

Now they're a spectacular set of six stools

with beautifully-finished English hardwood tops.

The rounded and bevelled corners of the seats echo

the curves of the original legs that have been carefully waxed

to preserve their patina.

And the wood has been expertly crafted

to show of the delightful character and colour tones

of the carefully-selected range of locally sourced timbers.

Oh, boys, you've been busy. Look at that lot!

Don't they look smart?

To make a sort of family of wood to go on top of them

and to use that idea to sell them together is great.

It's a really nice way to show off wood

and the beauty of English timber.

But we chose the most characterful bit of wood that we could find.

This is a beautiful set of stools.

And now, another episode of Name That Tree.

-Go on, then, let me guess. What's...? Is that walnut?

-Yeah.

-OK.

-Some kind of burry thing, so, oak?

-Yeah.

-Yep.

-Sycamore?

-Yes.

-Nice!

-Yew.

-Yeah.

-No idea.

-Ash.

-Ash.

-Ash?

-Yeah.

-And that one must be...

-I don't know what that one is.

-Think of our capital city.

-London plane.

-Yeah.

-Perfect!

Sarah's surprisingly good at that. Show-off!

I left, I think, £45 per stool on them. Did that come out on budget?

Yeah, we kept that in mind and we put that into the tops

and decided to leave the bases pretty much as they were.

I really like the bases. These colours with the wood are lovely.

Together they work really well.

I'm going to get more than £45 for that, aren't I?

-I mean, look at it.

-Yeah, I reckon you will, yeah.

Especially if somebody wants to buy the whole collection.

-What do you think? 45 times 6... So that is 270 for this lot.

-Yeah.

What you've done to them, it's a lovely thing. So thank you.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

It's a stunning achievement by Josh and Oli.

It's now up to Sarah to get them sold.

Well, I'm really pleased with the stools.

They are a lovely simple chunky design and they're really saleable.

You can't ask for more than that.

At the recycling centre,

Richard had a boot full of rusty school stools which were headed

for the scrapyard, and he had ambitious ideas for Sarah.

You can use the tubular steel in those shapes,

weld them together to make all sorts of endless possibilities.

But Sarah kept it simple and gave Josh and Oli the task

of topping them with some beautiful timber.

And they also caught the eye of online retailer Nick.

I quite like them because they're very minimal.

-Does that mean you're going to buy them?

-I'll take all six.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-Fantastic news, well done.

Now Sarah's back in Manchester to update Andrew on the old stools.

-Hi, there.

-Hey.

-How are you?

-I'm very well. How are you?

Yes, really well. Nice to see you again.

-I said I would come back and chat with you...

-You did.

-..about your stools.

-Yes.

-When we took them away,

-did you wonder what we might get up to with them?

-I did.

I really couldn't work out whether you were going to build them into

something or whether it was going to be a take on the same type of thing.

-I really... I've no idea.

-In the end, we went for stools.

-Oh, stools.

-So I wasn't wrong.

-No, you weren't wrong.

I've got some pictures here to show you of them.

-I'd love to see them.

-Yeah, do you want to have a look?

So that's how they ended up.

Oh, yes, yeah, they look really sturdy and chunky, don't they?

I can just imagine those round the kitchen island unit.

-Just that right height, aren't they, to have your breakfast at?

-Yeah.

And actually, because of that, it made them really saleable.

I've actually got some profit here to hand over to you.

-Yeah, I've got £100 pure profit here.

-£100 pure profit!

Right, on top of the people that have been paid to do the job.

-Yes, that's right.

-That's very good indeed.

They look so lovely

and so tactile that they were snapped up immediately,

so, yeah, I was really pleased.

-I hope you are with that little windfall.

-I am, very pleased, yeah,

and I think that they came from a school where children are

and I think the best place for this is for Children In Need.

I think charity will use this more wisely than I can.

Oh, that's fantastic, I love that idea.

-It just completes the circle, doesn't it?

-It does, yes.

-Really good to catch up.

-Thank you very much. Take care.

Lovely, thank you ever so much.

I think that was a lovely reaction

and Andrew's very generous to give all that money to Children In Need.

And we have created some beautiful stools that will

go on to have a new life in somebody else's house.

Perfect ending.

Josh and Oli charged a total of £270 for the wood

and their hard work on those stools.

Sarah sold them for £370, giving Andrew a profit of £100.

Sarah unearthed a pair of hidden gems

at the recycling centre in Altrincham.

Andrew's rusty stool bases were revamped with new hardwood tops

and Les's bundle of vintage material

has been reimagined as a set of scarves.

It's been fantastic to hand over some money to some great people

and to watch Josh and Oli

really breathe new life into those old stools.