One morning while sitting at the desk in front of my 3^rd floor window I watched my neighbour walk to the curb and place something beside his garbage bin.  It was garbage day, that day of endless possibilities where ‘one man’s garbage, is another woman’s treasure’.  I raced downstairs and outside and met my neighbour before he had the chance to go back inside.  I asked if I could have the item he was getting rid of.  I didn’t want to look like I was scrounging!   “Sure, but why?”, as he thought the ‘old’ item to be no longer any good.  Well, my ‘new’ found item was a foot stool, with a metal tulip-shaped base, covered in white diamond-shaped quilted leatherette, approximately 1950-60’s era.   The metal finish on the base was all pitted and flaking and the leatherette was ripped and dirty as I believe it had served some time outside.  But no matter because I could see past all this, as it truly was a diamond in the rough.  I had the stool recovered in a purple vinyl and I spray painted the metal base silver.  The spray paint was not great looking so I decided to go the extra and have the tulip-shaped base re-plated in polished chrome.  Re-plating is a great way to update metal objects when the finish has aged or worn away.  The new finish is amazing and the stool is now a unique, custom looking piece of furniture with a contemporary feel and instead of sitting by the garbage bin it has a place of honour in my living room.