Dunelm Scarborough launches community repair hub

The free in-store events will take place at Dunelm’s Scarborough store at Seamer Road Retail Park, across a series of dates from Monday March 18 to Sunday April 14, and will be designed to help customers make their favourite household items last even longer.

The store has also teamed up with charity organisation Community Furniture Stores, to host two useful furniture upcycling workshops and two drop-ins for craft-minded beginners.

In the workshop sessions, attendees will be taught a range of skills and techniques to upcycle their own furniture, including sanding, filling, repairing, priming, painting, and finishing.

Participants will also leave these sessions with a generous goodie bag filled with repair and refresh products to help them put into practice at home what they have learned.

During the drop-ins, attendees will have the opportunity to ask experts questions and bring along photos of their projects for advice and ideas.

The sessions will be held on the following dates and times:

- Adults: Five stages of furniture upcycling workshop: Thursday, March 21 and Saturday, April 6 from 1-4pm – £12 per person.

Attendees will progress through a station for each different stage of the furniture upcycling process where they can learn techniques and practice skills.

- Free Upcycling drop-in: Thursday March 21 and Saturday April 6 from 9:30am-12.30pm.

Customers can ask experts questions concerning furniture upcycling, bring along photos of their projects for advice and ideas, listen to the hosts overviews of the upcycling process, plus learn top tips and hints to get the best results.

Dunelm have also teamed up with the Scarborough Repair Café to host a free drop in repair session in the Scarborough store on Saturday March 30 from 10am-1pm, where people will be able to get their favourite household items fixed for free or learn how to repair them themselves.

The Scarborough Repair Café, who will be hosting the drop in session, is a volunteer-run organisation, passionate about tackling the climate emergency by repairing household items to save them from landfill.

There is no need to book, customers can simply turn up with items from the following categories: Electricals, small furniture, home textiles such as curtains and bedding, clothing and toys.

Darielle Morritt, Store Manager at Dunelm Scarborough, said: “The launch of our in-store repair events in Scarborough is an exciting development for our customers – we know many of them are keen to learn new skills that will help them extend the life of domestic items that have fallen into a state of disrepair.

“It is a positive step for the environment as well as helping customers make their cash go a bit further.

The skills that our customers can learn with help from the Scarborough Repair Café and Community Furniture Store will be invaluable, and we can’t wait to see what they salvage or save through our workshops and repair cafes.”

Customers wanting to take part in the workshops can find out how to do so on the Dunelm website at https://www.dunelm.com/info/about/repair.