Upcycling 101

A Lesson On Garbage or "Found Objects"

One man's trash is usually another man's treasure, but if it's not, then surely it can be made into one.

My sweet neighbors ditched a gorgeous antique door that had began rotting and falling apart. Of course when I saw this awesome green thing laying in their trash pile, I grabbed it. It came with accessories: a lovely colony of termites.

Needless to say it was pretty easy to disassemble.... the panels were perfect and extended an invitation of invention, so I graciously accepted. The first was used in my lamp, "The Spelunker", as a back drop. The others were fitted to a couple of other parts of the door and adorned with cast iron fleur de lis hooks painted in hot colors. Et voila! A coat rack is born.

FDL Coat Rack SOLD!!!

While we're on the subject of upcycling, I'll introduce to you my latest endeavor: building from scratch. When I say scratch, I mean the wood that I've been collecting out the garbage. Thankfully we live in an area in which a majority of the houses are pre-1940s, so finding scrap wood, shutters, doors, windows, etc. is pretty likely the night before garbage day. It also helps when you know someone :)

     I came across some nice old (rotting) white picket fence which of course made me American dream something useful up real fast. The next day I started trimming all of the rot off the fence boards, vigorously measuring (not twice but five times), and assembling this cute little end table. I learned some lessons from it and it took me all day and drained me of all patience, but by the end of the day, I stood beaming proudly at this piece of "FrankenFurniture". It's a good feeling to build something out of nothing with your own two hands, (even if it is a little crooked and inconsistent the first time).

Primitive Upcycled End Table - SOLD!