West Seattle artist shares Diy strategies for reworking home furnishings
Amanda Whitworth shares furniture transformations and her cancer journey with extra than 27,000 Instagram followers on her account Sawdust and Soul. #k5night
SEATTLE — What is previous is new once again, many thanks to the expanding pattern of “furniture flipping” and men and women like Amanda Whitworth.
She runs a tiny enterprise from her property in West Seattle, turning unwanted furnishings into elegant and usable items.
“I just like having the most dilapidated piece of home furnishings you can uncover and wholly transforming it into some thing you’d in no way identify,” she claimed.
She showcases and marketplaces her capacity via enjoyable movies exhibiting “before and after” projects on Instagram. More than 27,000 persons abide by her account Sawdust and Soul.
But Whitworth’s feed is just not committed to purely very issues. She also posts brazenly about her most essential Do-it-yourself challenge: herself.
For a lot more than 20 a long time, she’s been on a winding and unpredictable cancer journey.
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It started off in 1999 when her mother known as with devastating news: she had endometrial cancer.
“I bear in mind my whole environment just slowing down and my to start with assumed was, ‘Oh my god, my mom is likely to die,’” she claimed.
Her mom survived, but 3 several years later on Whitworth’s brother was identified with stage 2 colon most cancers.
Ultimately, the total loved ones was analyzed and health professionals found out they carry a genetic mutation.
“We have some thing identified as Lynch Syndrome,” Whitworth mentioned. “It boosts our lifelong chance of getting several varieties of most cancers. I was identified in 2017 with metastatic most cancers of an mysterious primary resource.”
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At the time, she’d just started woodworking, and the pastime grew to become a life line.
“It was like my therapy,” she claimed. “It saved me mentally and emotionally, and it gave me one thing to plan for.”
Right after undergoing surgical treatment and radiation, Whitworth defeat the cancer. But the potential for a further fight stays.
“I even now have a possibility of getting other cancers, and that is pretty terrifying to stay with,” she claimed. “But at the very same time, it motivates me to live a existence that feels the truest to me, in the most authentic way I quite possibly can.”
She mentioned that suggests doing what lights her up, and listening to her intestine. In September of 2021, her intuition explained to her to start off flipping home furniture for a living.
“We only get one shot at lifestyle, and if you can find something you want to do and try, you may as very well just try it, and even if you are unsuccessful, that’s alright,” Whitworth said. “You will find practically nothing completely wrong with failing simply because sooner or later you are likely to succeed.”
She hopes her followers and clients are influenced to abide by their very own callings — no matter if they contain woodworking or not.
“We can change lives by the much more genuine and clear we are with our possess,” she stated.
Whitworth is also a wood artist specializing in landscapes. Her operate is offered on her site, and she’s now using commissions for equally furniture and artwork. She also vlogs on YouTube.
