Upcycling Hillcrest

It started as a 'pop-up' shop during the Kilcullen River Festival Weekend, but such was the response from customers that the 'Shabby Chic Junkies' are now in the process of opening a longer lived emporium of vintage and up-cycled furniture and crafts, writes Brian Byrne.

Antoinette Buckley and Jennifer Monaghan are the latest entrepreneurs to bring some life back to the struggling Hillcrest end of Kilcullen's retail scene, following Evelyn O'Sullivan's recent opening of her Drama Dynamics studio there.

"It's a short term effort at the moment, but we hope it could become permanent," Antoinette told the Diary on Saturday during one of the upcycling courses which evolved out of the River Festival initiative. "It's also trying to do something to regenerate and expand the retail offering in Kilcullen."

Under the name J & A Shabby Chic, the enterprise will essentially be a 'living showroom' for 'vintage collection' local crafts, with regular workshops for those wishing to learn more about decoupage, chalk painting, and related skills for up-cycling, which in its own way offers a new life to furniture and other items that might otherwise be consigned to an end-of-life dump.

The new shop should be fully ready for business in the next week or so.