When she went to B&Q Kayleigh Greer wanted a grey set of drawers to match the rest of her bedroom furniture.
But all she could find were blue cabinets so, reluctantly, she bought them for £150.
Fast forward three years and Kayleigh, 35, has made a discovery while cleaning that initially left her feeling panicked and then just a little bit daft.
The drawers weren’t blue after all – that was the colour of a protective layer that peeled away easily.
Despite coming as a bit of a shock, Kayleigh said the discovery was like getting a brand new unit ‘without spending a penny’.
The national sales manager, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, said: ‘I never had any suspicions the blue colour was a protective film.
‘I knew there was white tape along the top of each drawer which I thought was protection and would eventually need pulling off.
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‘Then I was deep cleaning the bedroom the other day and I was down near the cabinet vacuuming and I thought “while I’m down here, I may as well finally peel off the tape”.
‘But as I started to peel, I noticed the blue film had lifted and I panicked and thought I had ruined unit.
‘But I just kept peeling and it kept coming off. Underneath it was a really nice grey. It looks amazing.’
When she first bought the cabinet, to be used as a TV stand, Kayleigh said she asked B&Q staff whether they had any other colours apart from the ‘blue’ one on display.
But she was forced to take it thinking it was the closest match to her bedroom that she could find.
‘The bedroom is grey and silver so the cabinet actually matches better now,’ Kayleigh said.
‘It’s like we’ve got a brand new piece of furniture and we haven’t spent a penny.’
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After stripping the entire unit Kayleigh ran downstairs clutching the blue plastic to tell her husband, who was looking after their boys Taylor, eight, Greyson, 17 months, and 16-week-old Felix, the good news.
She said: ‘Darren was downstairs with the kids and I came down with all this blue film scrunched up in my arms.
‘He asked me where it had come from and when I told him it had come from the cabinet he burst out laughing before rushing upstairs to see what I’d done.
‘He thinks it’s amazing. He prefers the cabinet now to before.’
