The art of upcycling

Deepti first fell in love with chalk paint and furniture restoration nine years ago. Now she runs Big Blue Trunk, where she upcycles anything from chairs to bathtubs and helps others discover the joys of DIY.

-  JOYCE YANG

Nine years back, when Deepti had just moved to Singapore, she found herself staring at a waterstained console table in her new living room. Surely she could fix this, she thought, and she was right. A couple of Google searches later, she wound up at the local stockist of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, then located in Dempsey Hill, where she became a convert at once.

“From the moment I walked up that old wooden staircase and into the studio at Dempsey, I knew I had discovered something amazing,” Deepti recounts.

Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, developed by the namesake in 1990, is billed as a versatile furniture paint that can be simply applied with no need for sanding or priming. In other words, whether you’re a two-year-old child or an interior designer, you’ll do just fine.

In the following years, chalk paint provided Deepti with a creative outlet while she worked at Google in Singapore and eventually moved to Hong Kong. At that time, the entrepreneur had managed a global not-for-profit, consulted for social enterprises and earned an MBA from INSEAD. Yet, there was a sense of inevitability—her time in the corporate world was coming to a close.

“Since I was little, I’ve loved making stuff with my hands. Egg-shell candles, wallpaper from old magazine cutouts, clay lamps on my potter’s wheel. Creating something of beauty from scratch has always brought me great joy and satisfaction.”

Deepti’s wellspring of creativity was by no means happenstance. From a young age, her mother involved her in a multitude of DIY projects, from crafting stained glass windows to tending bonsais and creating intricate diyas (lamps).