Category Archives: repurposing

our junky garden

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In the last week I’ve managed to get a bit of work done in the garden. Not on my own… I had some help otherwise I’d be lying on the couch moaning in pain right now.

One thing I did by myself was move these broken old chairs into the front garden bed. Partly to stop the dogs from digging, partly as garden art. I got these chairs at the tip shop ages ago. The guy there thought I was going to fix and restore them. I had no such notions. I only bought them as garden art.

There used to be a gorgeous burgundy penstemon growing where the chair (below) is but the dogs dug it up and killed it. I have another one in there now but till it grows up enough to grow through the chair like the one above, I have an old jam saucepan sitting on it.

The birdcage is protecting a newly planted daisy.

I love my junky garden art.

Close to the front door the old washing machine drum which used to hold lettuce now has sweet peas in it. I’m using the broken windmill as a climbing trellis for them when they grow.

I do have plans to restore the windmill.

If you’re wondering about the springs… dog barrier.

Need I say more?

I found this little chair at the tip shop a couple of weeks ago. I had planned to fix it up but for now its holding some of my succulents on the front porch.

AND…. (drumroll)

I bought a maple!

Its a japanese maple, no idea what type exactly. I had one of these in Melbourne many years ago and I sure hope this does well. Till now we’ve had no trees in the house yard and that’s just wrong. This is tree no. 1.

I dressed it up with a few junky planters so it wouldn’t feel so alone on the side of the woodshed. The soil there sucks, but we dug a deep hole and filled it with soil, fertilizer and manure. Fingers crossed.

I did plant some trees just outside the yard – one canadian maple which bit the dust, one orange tree which was eaten by the geese, three birches near the dam of which one survived. The others were eaten by the geese. Seven birches near the water tanks, and five pussy willows, all of which have survived and are growing despite having been pruned back by the horses on numerous occasions.

Meanwhile, you may have noticed the tyres around the maple… We’ve now added tyres down lower in front of the new drainage ditch, creating an extended garden area. For now I’ve got some spring bulbs in the tyres closest to the maple but need more plants to fill the other tyres.

I bought a new camellia which I put in a container on the side of the house. Advice of a friend: put it in a container in the spot you think you want it to live, that way you don’t have to dig a hole and plant it till you know if it likes it there.
Excellent advice.
Procrastination 101.
The white banksia rose I moved twice and almost killed has come back. Its now in a pot in the spot I intend to plant it eventually. I like this way of gardening. Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?

Other than that, I got this old singer from the tip shop. The base is broken but I’d love to find a way to grow a plant around it. Same with the typewriter. I got them both with the plan of making them into garden art. I can put a small pot into the centre of the typewriter, something which will grow up and hang down over the keys a bit. The sewing machine… maybe I can remove the base and sit it in a container and grow a plant around it…
There’s still more to do, but isn’t there always? I’ve spread sugar cane mulch, got the vegetable garden cleaned out of weeds and attacked the weeds. Again. We’re coming in to winter here so I won’t be doing an awful lot to the garden till spring. I just wanted it to look tidy.
z
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an embarrassing desk makeover

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This is an embarrassing post… But in the interest of reality, here goes…
I’ll start at the beginning: 
Those of you who know me know that I like rearranging furniture. I also like re-assigning furniture and making it over. And over. Then moving it again.
It keeps me busy and Wayne confused.
When we first moved into our home I created an office for both myself and Wayne. He got an extra large desk and I got a cupboard door on filing cabinets. He never used his desk, preferring to work in the kitchen, so I created an office space in the living room for him using my original corner office desk. 
There was nothing wrong with that desk… It was large. It was practical.  But it didn’t have drawers and it was made of melamine.
I dislike melamine.
So, I replaced it with something more my style.* I had this old office desk with metal legs and a crappy top. I put weathered timber on top and all was well with my soul.
Wayne lost his corner desk and had to adjust to less desk acreage.
*Cause it might be his desk, but its my style!
This new improved desk had the same issue as the corner melamine desk. No drawers. Wayne ended up with about 54 odds and ends to hold all his stuff. When you don’t have drawers you have a small filing cabinet, an el cheapo metal and plastic drawer unit whose drawers fall out every time you pull them out, and a couple of bookcases… 
No so pretty. Not the style I was going for.
Just before Christmas I decided it was time to move Wayne’s office space. 
Again.
(No, he has no say in this.)
I put a divider in the middle of the living room for the TV and moved Wayne to the other side so the first thing you see when you walk into the living room isn’t his messy office desk.
Then, just to keep things interesting, I decided to change his desk. 
Again.
We had this old desk in the garage since we’d moved here. I got Wayne to remove the top cause it was beyond repair – he’d been sitting his chainsaws on it. As you do. It was covered in oil. 

The main issue with this desk was that the leg space was so narrow. Just imagine all the times you’d knock your knees on this!
I took the saw to it and cut it apart (in a really messy way), leaving me with two drawer units. The plan was to paint these units, put them on castors and plonk a large shed door on top.
It all started well enough. I gave them a light sand, then mixed up my own chalk paint – in white. Of course.

I added castors.

I painted some random numbers on it, cause I have stencils you know.

And yes, I know I put it on upside down.

This is the door I had earmarked for the top. Its half of a huge hinged garage door.

I love the chippy cream paint. 
I didn’t put a top on the units, just plonked this baby down on top of them. I mean, why bother, right? No one would see it.
I got all the pieces up to the living room (that is one heavy door!) and put it all together. Wayne began moving his stuff in…
I hated it. Not just cause of the upside down stencil either. It just didn’t look right.
Then, while I was wondering what I should do to fix it, Wayne broke it. One of the bottom drawers got stuck on a castor lock and he heaved and broke it.
I thought about repainting it. I mean, I had to fix it anyway… but what colour?
I thought about black, but I didn’t have any black. I did have dark grey… Same colour as our feature wall… I thought ok… how about I paint it dark grey? 
I painted the drawer fronts first. Not sure I liked that either so I didn’t paint the units.
I used offcuts of plywood, which I had planned to use to finish the TV unit, to put a top and bottom on the units. The plan this time was no castors, just a flat bottom. For the extra height needed, I put a little shelf on top. This provides a handy place for Wayne’s large sketchbooks.

Its still not right. Its messy looking, but given that its a door with Z braces on the back, not much I can do about that part.

The one thing I did do to the door is attach a small piece of pine along the back to stop things rolling off behind the desk. You can just see it below, behind the lamp base.

For now its more or less finished, and I can pull it apart easily any time.

The dressmakers model and the cream Ikea trolley are mine. In case you’re wondering. I’m working on a wearable art piece on the model and the trolley holds my pastels.

This is how the desk area looks now. Cosy.
But I’m still not happy with the desk. I’m thinking all black drawer units and natural timber on top would be the best way to go. I haven’t painting anything black since my student days…
I need to buy black paint.
Wayne won’t be happy if I pull his desk apart and start over…
z

another record table

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Yes, I mentioned a new record table. It was in the photo I shared in my last post. I forgot I hadn’t actually posted about it…
Honest mistake.
So, here it is, in a rustic setting.

I don’t know if you remember, but I did make a record table before. I had a stool base with hairpin legs but no top and thought a record would make a great top for it.

It was great. I sold it at one of the markets.

I regretted it.

I made another one. Not as pretty. No hairpin legs. This one was a stool with a top when I found it. A ratty top which I promptly dispatched to the great broken stool home in the sky.

All I did to make this table was give the legs a wash, buy new rubber stoppers as it only had one left, dust off the old gramophone record and use a crapload lots of liquid nails to glue it together.

Simple.

Effective.

Cute.

I put it in the living room and for ages I used it to hold my coffee cup as I watched TV or worked on the laptop. Then one night I forgot myself and put my feet on it.

I don’t recommend you do that. Gramophone records are really brittle.

Out came the liquid nails again. This time I glued the new record to the old one, making it double thickness.

Its back holding the remotes right now. And I have a footstool for my feet.

It pays to remember what things are for. Footstools are for feet. Brittle 33.5 record side tables are for a cup of coffee. And perhaps a bowl of popcorn. A small one.

z

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easy industrial stencil art

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Somewhere along the line, my rustic shabby country farmhouse has turned a bit industrial. I mean with the poles in the middle of the living room there weren’t many places to go…

So I embraced the poles (not literally, though there was that one night when I thought I’d try pole dancing… best forgotten. Forget I mentioned it…) and built a TV unit/room divider between them.

Now I have a proper separation between the ‘work’ and ‘entertaiment’ areas of the living room. Instead of trying to hide the poles (ever tried to blend in poles in the middle of a room? impossible) I painted them black and made them a feature.

This resulted in a slightly more industrial feel to the decor.

Plywood and poles will do that.

I also bought a new leather couch and ended up with a scandanavian style instead of the old gentleman’s club style that I thought I wanted. The colour and style really suits the new rustic industrial farmhouse decor.

Here’s a preview of the new couch in place, including the mess all around it…

Anyway, I decided it was time to up the industrial aspect of the living room with some original recycled artwork.

Plus, it was time to take the christmas tree down!

These stencils are all real, factory shipping label stencils, some have even been used. Many times. Others are just plain old. They were given to me by a great friend and soon as I saw them I knew I wanted to make this artwork.

I recycled an old frame I got from the tip shop. I had originally put fabric in it to match some cushion covers and hung it over the bed in my house in Fentonbury when I was selling it.

Since then its been in our bedroom, just sitting there.

Waiting.

Till yesterday.

Yesterday I took it down to the casita, took out the fabric, laid out the stencils in a way that pleased me, used a ton of glue to hold them in place (there’s no glass on this) and then decided the frame looked wrong in distressed white.

So I taped off the inner rustic timber ‘mount’ and sprayed it gloss black. Then, after it was dry but before it had cured completely, I used a paint scraper to scrape a bit off here and there to show some white through.

Much better.

I especially love the splashes of blue!

It kinda looks good there now. It goes with the black poles and the little record side table. Which I haven’t shared yet… oops.

We’re getting there.

All I need to do now is paint the living room white. Or a grey that isn’t blue. Get rid of the carpet and put down some kind of floor that’s easy to clean and doesn’t make me gag. Finish the TV unit. Get a bigger rug. Find a solution to the world garbage problem.

I’ll get right on to it.

Easy.

z

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rustic tea light holder

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This is one of those projects I had lying around for ages. Its probably from some kind of gun safe, two bits of old timber with holes, just waiting for a makeover. I had it for so long I can’t remember where it came from.

I started making into a tea light holder a couple of years ago but then just left it in the shed till it got buried under piles of other projects ‘to do’.

Then one day I just sort of got inspired to finish it with some nuts and a rusty hinge.

It might not be exactly fire safe as far as tea light holders go…. but hey! You can put LED tea lights in it!

And its rustic and cute.

Those things count for a lot in my world.

I took it to a local shop and it sold straight away.

So there you go. Rustic and cute won out over fire safe for someone other than me!

Meanwhile I know its been a long time since I posted last. The cataract surgery in my right eye was not easy to get over. For the last month I’ve had tired eyes, dry eye, blurry vision and I’ve just been too tired to do anything online or any craft at all.

Luckily, my left eye, which was done 2 days ago, has been the total opposite. Its been a success from day one. Almost no pain after surgery, very little blurry vision or discomfort. Thank goodness as I was getting pretty depressed about the whole thing.

Both eyes are much better now and I can see well… except now my near vision is worse than it was before and I need to wear glasses (at least those magnifying ones from the chemist) in order to do any close up work. That means that sewing or fine craft work means glasses. Since I can’t get used to wearing glasses and looking up OVER them rather than through them, I get awful dizzy spells when I wear them. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.

The good news is that apparently my eyesight won’t get any worse from this point on so I’ll have plenty of time to get used to the new eyes.

z

the kitchen sink

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When renovating the kitchen, I chose a double sink (1 and 3/4 actually) with a single drainboard. I mean, I had a dishwasher, right? I no longer needed all the drainboard space to drip dry all the dishes I wash.
Well, what was happening was that piles of dirty dishes, cups, cutlery and other items would pile on the benchtop and sit there waiting for me to put them in the dishwasher, which meant I had to first empty the dishwasher… 
Wayne hates things stacked IN the sink cause he can’t fill the kettle or whatever, so they ended up on the one drainboard, then overflowed onto the other side on the bench.
The mess wasn’t the issue. I mean I can turn a blind eye if it means not having to do a chore, but the items sitting on the benchtop have caused the varnish in that area to flake.
I should have used oil based varnish. Live and learn.
Now, the sensible thing would be to NOT pile up dishes, to put everything in the dishwasher soon as it was finished with, empty the dishwasher soon as its finished, etc.
But who am I kidding?
I’m not that person. I try, but I can only sustain an immitation of  “Perfect Housewife” for a few days, then I lapse straight back into “Slovenly Housekeeper”.
So… I found this cute little enamel tray in my stuff. 

I’d forgotten I had it.

See, cleaning up occasionally is a good idea!

Anyway, I put some rubber stoppers under it which do two things: they stop it from sliding and they keep it off the bench so water won’t sit under it and do further damage to the bench.

Its the spot we can now rest dirty things till its time to put them in the dishwasher, allowing the sinks to remain free so we can actually use them.

Funny thing… since I put the tray there there’s been no mess in the kitchen. I put things in the dishwasher and empty it straight away.

Relax.

It won’t last.

z

what to do with the foundry cogs

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When I saw these little beauties I just knew I had to have them.
No idea what I’d do with them.
I just knew I wanted them.
They’re cute.
“I have no idea what this is, but I love the shape” has lead to a whole lot of interesting acquisitions!
Anyway, I was thinking about what I could do with them and went into the workshop to have a little look…

What do you think? Aren’t these the bestest jewellery holders you’ve ever seen?

These are the two smallest of the cogs. The bottom bits are lamp bases which I’ve had for a while (cause I knew I’d need them for something special one day!) They’re not attached yet as I was just trying them out. When I do finish them I’ll need to put small nails on the ends of each tooth to hold the chains on effectively.

The tops make great spots for earrings or bracelets. In fact, I’m thinking I’d need to keep both cause they’re just perfect for different items… longer chains, shorter chains…

The largest cog is currently trying out this tall base I have… I’m not really sure what this is from and its not perfect. If I decide to go this way I’ll paint it white cause I love the black and white look…

The biggest cog has way more space on top for smaller items of jewellery too.

So, what do you think? I have to go ahead with this, right? I mean, they’re perfect!

I was thinking of wall art, maybe, but without any real plan… can you think of anything better?

Go on. I challenge you… Tell me if there’s anything you can think I could use the cogs for and I’ll consider all ideas. Otherwise I’m making these permanent! 🙂
z
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chalkboards with spoon chalk holders

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Long ago while going through a mad chalkboard phase. I made these two chalkboards from the doors to an old cabinet I trashed. They were the only solid timber parts so they were worth keeping. 
I’d forgotten about them and failed to share, so here goes…
…’cause its been too quiet on the creative side lately!
I used milk paint on both of these doors for the surround and water based chalkboard paint for the middle. I bought the milk paint on ebay in powder form from a seller who makes his own and uses it on the rustic furniture he makes.

I love the colours. I bought 5 of them… but I find it hard to work with. Actually I am pretty sure I’m not using them properly yet..,.

Still, the results are pretty good. Especially since I doubt I’m doing it right.

The bluey green is called lichen. Nice name as well as nice colour.

Given they’re doors and basically the same design flipped, I gave them the same chalk holder – a bent spoon.

I mean… why not?

I finished them off with DIY rusted eyelets and wire for hanging.

Kinda cute, even if I do say so myself.

I’m sure you’ll agree.

z

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a measuring cup pencil holder, a wire shelf and a shutter shelf

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A little more cleaning up…

Its not finished yet. There is still another 3/4 of the workshop to finish, but I made a start last night.

Before:

After:

Of course, I would have gotten more done if I didn’t get distracted. The way I seem to work is: stare at the mess, dither about where to start, pick up something, put it down, move it over to another surface, look for a container to put it in, think a shelf would look nice there, look for things to make a shelf out of, necessitating moving more things over just a bit to make space, find a measuring cup I got at a tip shop and decide it would make a great pencil holder, find wire to make that, then start cutting wood to make brackets cause nothing I have will work, then make a shelf out of a broken wire basket cause I always planned to do it but never got around to it, and now I have and its good to finally do it, but oops, there’s still a huge pile of stuff to put away so I pick up things and put them in their place, realise there are now too many things so create new places for things and labelling them so I can find them again… and suddenly its 9pm and I’m blowing black stuff out of my nose.

But my new toolbox is now full of tools…

and that wall is looking like a working workshop instead of a jumble sale.

The drawers are only there temporarily… till I find my electric plane. Then they’ll go back into the tv unit/divider.

You may notice a few other things in the picture above… the stencils given to me by a good friend cause she knows I’ll love them and cherish them and call them my very own. My new measuring cup pencil holder (that dark little triangle lost in the gloom), my new wire shelf and, last but not least, the new recycled shutter (louvre door to be exact) shelf.

The one I always planned to put up but didn’t have the necessary bits or the patience to buy them. What the heck, right? Make do is the name of the game!

Don’t try this at home.

Hey. It works. Don’t judge me cause I’m imaginative!

Meanwhile let me share my gorgeous new pencil holder. Its a measuring cup I found at the tip shop last weekend. I’ve never seen one like it before.

Please ignore the hole in the wall. I didn’t do that. The wall came pre-punched.

Do you wanna see the wire shelf?
I’ve had this wire basket for quite a while and the wire on the corners has come undone and its not in the best condition. I always thought it’d make a good shelf.

So, while in the middle of cleaning and organising my workshop, I naturally had to stop and make this little fella.

Firstly I had to wire the corners to stop the wire bits from sticking out and causing bad things to happen.

Then I trimmed some offcuts of plywood as the shelves. The bottom shelf just sits in place but the one in the middle is wired in place. I drilled holes to feed wire through and hold the shelf in place.

I attached it to the wall with those plaster wall plugs… which of course weren’t the right size for the job. Oh, they’ll take the weight ok, but the screws weren’t long enough to clamp the wire back in place properly.
Thats ok.
As long as its pretty!
z

the divider – stage 1 & 2 finished

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Remember the room divider post a little while back? I was using these two images below as my inspiration and starting point:

I had a CD cabinet similar to the one above, though much smaller… and I have metal poles in my living room like below (only uglier)…

My thought was that since it was too much work (and expense) to remove the poles, I’d embrace them and make myself a room divider which included them in a kind of farmhouse industrial style.
Now prepare your eyeballs for something really, really horrible… the view of our living room in mid-chaos a couple of years back. Not sure what I was up to then, but somewhere in between I decided to take these photos…
From the kitchen side:

From the front door side:

Beautiful poles, dividing the room in half, totally limiting what you can do with it, making it hard to decorate, ugly… what can I say? Not to mention the three different ceiling heights in our living room as different rooms were opened up or added to create the big living room (before our time).

Below you can see the CD cabinet, in amongst all the crap bits of odd furniture we were using as part of Wayne’s office in the living room.

I started with the CD cabinet as my base. I’m not good at making furniture from scatch (how do I know? I’ve never tried it, but given my problems with measuring I’d say it was a fair bet!

… I found that the drawers were square and would fit in it either upright or on its side. I considered recycled timber but I decided to go with plywood. You can get it in large sheets so I wouldn’t have to join a million pieces. I used 12mm construction ply. Plenty strong enough for what I needed. I gave the guys at the hardware store the measurements I needed and they cut it for me using their wizbang saw.

I built a box around the cabinet with open shelves on either side to extend the cabinet to totally fill the space between the poles. I actually measured that really well. Its a really tight fit but it fits!

We won’t be moving this in a hurry…

I had planned to use some 60’s legs on it, but they were too spindly. This sucker is heavy. In the end I found some chunky round metal legs at Bunnings which were almost a perfect match for the poles (I got the slightly taller ones than the ones pictured. I bought 6 of them to make sure there’d be no sag, not that I expected any, but to appease Wayne who was concerned about the weight on just four legs.

I painted the poles satin black to match the legs and it looks like the poles were part of the design.

I build the unit/divider in two stages. First I made the base box around the CD cabinet, put legs on it, moved it in and gave it three coats of polyurethane.
I put the TV on it so we could use it while I built the top section to hold the PVR, DVD player, etc.

I made the top shelf as a separate box with dividers and back, but no bottom. I measured the PVR and DVD player and built cubbies to fit them, leaving one middle one free and two end ones open. Once that was finished I brought it in and just put it on top of the base. It wasn’t connected to anything at that stage.

Of course, you always need a back on a TV unit so the TV doesn’t go flying. Especially when you have a poodle like Romeo who not only watches TV, but likes to protect us from all the scary animals living in it!

I built the back out of ply offcuts. The two uprights go all the way to the ground for more stability and the top section (with air holes) sits on top of the upper shelf. I attached this to the base at the back with screws. I used mostly black screws for this job as I wanted the contrast between light ply and black metal. When I ran out of black screws I used regular ones (way cheaper) and just coloured their tops in using a permanent marker.

Now the back side of the unit is a small sitting area and you don’t have to look at the back of the TV.

This is what it looks like from the side. The living room area is now closest to the kitchen and you can watch TV from the kitchen through the opening, the office area is now on the far side of the living room and much less visible when its a mess!
At the last minute I decided to put backs on the side shelves of the bottom unit to hide the electric cables. Since the power points are on the wall, there was no power in the middle of the room.  I had to get the electrician to come put a power point in the floor just next to the pole, you can see it in the photo above. 
Stupid me – forgot to ask him to bring the antenna cable up too… sigh. Now I’ll have to do it myself or find a willing sucker friend to do it for me.

I used leftover bits of peg board from my linen cupboard makeover for that. I put the white sides to the front and the brown to the back but sprayed them gloss black – they look mat cause its a rough surface and they kind look like the stuff old speakers were made of.
I had my painting of Dancer framed and have hung it on the back side of the unit to give it a cosier feel. My first aid box sewing basket acts as a side table.
The divider/unit isn’t finished. There will be either one or two shelves above it taking it up to the beam, and the back bit needs to be polyurethaned. I just ran out of time before Christmas. I can easily polyurethane it a couple of evenings after work.
So what were the boo-boos in this project:
Well, of course there was the failure to bring the antenna cable over so now it has to sit under a rug and its visible.
There was the original plan to use galvanised iron for both the legs and between the shelves – I don’t know how all those bloggers in the USA build gorgeous shelving units out of that stuff… here its SO expensive! I paid over $60 for 6 legs and it would have cost MORE if I went with galvanised pipe!
The dividers between the PVR and DVD players aren’t totally straight… it was hard to attach them so it was a bit of a hit and miss process.
And best of all, with all the movement and weight, the bottom drawers of the CD cabinet no longer fit in their place! I’ll have to plane them off a bit. So till I do that I have the CDs just sitting in there like its a bookcase. 
Eh. 
It works.
And I love it!
z
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