Turning Junk into Designer Furniture

Before you complete that huge spring clean, chucking out all the 'useless junk' that is taking up space, stop and think for a second if it could be transformed into something of use. Upcycling is all about using old materials to create new, useful and often beautiful products.

These pieces of upcycled furniture have taken pieces of trash and turned them into treasure, with inventive designs that will be sure to get you rummaging through your storage or local warehouses.

Milk Crate Staircase

Danish architecture firm Lendager Arkitekter created this milk crate staircase as a key feature of their million dollar 'Upcycled House', and is made entirely from milk boxes and OBD boards.

Washing Machine Drum Stools

Knit Knacks is the new range from the designers Junk Munkez - creative designers with a green conscience - located in Beirut. These nifty little creations emerged from washing machine drums to create colourful and fun embroidered stools.

Ski Chandelier

Helsinki-based travel agency Elamysmatkat were searching for an interior design that reflected their philosophy that snow travel should be fun and daring. Enter Dutch designer Willem Heeffer, who created this chandelier, created from skis donated by Heeffer's Facebook friends and fans.

Magazine Stool

This innovative design, The Hockenheimer by German company NJU Studio, provides an original piece of seating from a stack of old magazines.

Sea Chair

British designers Studio Swine collect plastic from the UK's most polluted beach, Porthtowan, and compress this waste to create a series of beautiful and functional Sea Chairs.

Nautical Mat

Sophie Aschauer founded SerpentSea in 2011 after a sailing trip in which she started weaving mats by hand out of reclaimed marine ropes. The mats use four style of knots each named after the most infamous pirates from the 17th Century - Bonnie, Drake, Morgan and Killigrew.

Suitcase Medicine Cabinet

Give an old suitcase new purpose by hanging one up on your bathroom wall and transforming it into a medicine cabinet. Add some shelves inside and a mirror on the outside and you've got yourself a fancy wall feature to store your toiletries in.

Watering Can Shower

Jazz up your shower to make the daily ritual more exciting with an old watering can.

The Interweb Chair

The Interweb Chair comes from BRC Designs, a studio in South Carolina fronted by mastermind Benjamin Rollins Caldwell. The 1cm blue plastic sheets that frame the chair were originally bathroom dividers in an old mill.

Binary Table

The Binary Table is an assemblage of old computer and electronic parts that were discarded in a warehouse and rendered obsolete. The table is decked out with motherboards, CDs, computer chips, hard disc drives and LED screens held together by sheet metal screws.