Hester Overbeek

Nowadays, it is easy to find affordable furniture for your home from chain stores, but those pieces can lack character. This is where furniture hacking comes in - updating, repurposing and personalising to create stylish, unique masterpieces. Here, Hester van Overbeek shows you 35 ways to update your home accessories, soft furnishings and even wooden furniture, all with step-by-step photos to guide you along the way. Projects range from simpler ideas, such as a table made from stacked old magazines or a patchwork rug, created by sewing small inexpensive mats together, to ways to create larger pieces for a fraction of the price it would cost to buy them new. Discover how to make your own four-poster bed by combining a budget bed base and pieces of reclaimed wood, or convert a bookcase into a sideboard. There are five chapters - Living Room, Kitchen and Dining Room, Bedroom, Home Office, and Outdoor Space - and each one includes an 'instant update' idea for beginner upcyclers, too. Why not paint cutlery handles with nail polish to update them, or make your own bedside light simply using a shelf support? Hester's philosophy is that you don't need much money or many DIY skills to make your house into a cosy, stylish home. With the right inspiration, you can create something beautiful.

Follow Hester van Overbeek's easy steps to make a fresh flower-decorated tea-light holder for a garden party, store all your grains and pasta in large jars with vibrantly painted lids or why not surprise a friend with the colourful 'birthday in a jar'? There are lots of quick ideas that take no time at all, such as holiday memories in a jar, the table-setting jars or the floral centrepiece that will charm all your guests. Some are elegant, some are homespun, but all make use of natural materials such as wood, shells, flowers and leather - to give an original but sophisticated feel to your home and garden. Once you are confident in making the simpler crafts, there are more intricate projects to try, using basic DIY techniques: make a fabulous drink dispenser, a desk lamp or a rustic vase display by attaching jars to a weathered piece of wood. All the projects have clear step-by-step instructions and hand-drawn illustrations to guide you, so all you need to do is pick the project you want to make first!

Create 35 beautiful planters, decorations and gifts - all using concrete. Follow Hester van Overbeek's simple tutorials to make a huge range of unique concrete projects. You will find everything you need to know - what type of concrete to buy, how to use it and how to decorate it - explained in a comprehensive techniques section. From there you can make chic and on-trend home accessories such as upside-down plant pots, a concrete vase with a wooden base, serving platters, a letter-shaped bookend, fruit bowls and much more.