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Upcycled Dresser Bar

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On occasion, we’ll pick up or acquire a chest of drawers that has seen better days. Often times one or more drawers will be damaged… or even missing. A favorite project of ours for these misfits is to give them the opportunity to be reincarnated into a higher form: a bar.

Creative Decisions

Painting the dresserThe amount of decoration that your chest has and the level of damage it has suffered will help you to shape its new form. Like a hockey player’s absent teeth, sometimes we run across furniture that used to be better adorned that its present state. If the absence of a particular piece of molding isn’t a detriment that you can’t live without, we can balance both sides of the piece to reestablish symmetry. This works pretty well. Obviously, we don’t employ this technique on priceless heirlooms or museum pieces, but for non-historically significant pieces, this will provide balance and pleasing aesthetics that delight you and your purse.

Occasionally a piece will look funny without replacing some molding, if you aren’t confident that you can replicate the look to your satisfaction, pass on the piece. If it just needs balancing, grab it up at a bargain! Of course, use the missing molding to your advantage when negotiating price.

Sometimes one of the drawer fronts will make a nice back splash for your bar, we’ve employed this technique on more than one occasion. Check out the pictures for inspiration.

Piano Bookcase

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Please read no further if you’re squeamish. To some, the following project may represent all that is wrong with the world of repurposing, but for our customer it allowed them to keep mom’s baby grand piano minus the expense of storing it and/or keeping it in playing condition.

Moving the Beast

When I went to pick up the piano for this project, I got permission from the owners to disassemble the piano onsite. The owner even helped me take it apart. The worst part is removing the harp, which is made of cast iron and can easily weigh over one hundred pounds. This particular model was an old player piano, so it had even more pieces than a typical piano. Luckily, most all the pieces are screwed together, so with a little patience and elbow grease you can whittle it down into manageable-sized pieces for moving.

Disassembling the pianoRemoving the harp is the trickiest part not only because of the weight, the harp is also where all of the piano wire, or strings, are strung. You can back out all of the tuning pegs if you have the correct wrench for this, but we’ve always used a pair of bolt cutters to cut all of the strings. This way is much faster, but you do have to be very cautious since the strings are very tight and can spring up at you when cut. Always wear gloves and safety glasses when performing this task. Also helpful is to lay a board across the strings as they are cut, which tends to absorb some of the energy as they are cut.

Once all of the screws are out of the harp, and the strings are off, you and a helper can pull the harp up and out of the piano (assuming a grand or baby grand versus upright). An engine hoist would also be helpful for this task and would save your backs, but a couple of strong lads should be able to do this work.

Finish tearing down the piano screw by screw. Remove the legs, the keyboard, and the hammers on the inside. Moving should be a breeze now.

DIY Door Table

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Building from discarded materials is sure to open up a whole new world of creative, and functional, possibilities for you.

In days gone by, resourceful homeowners made many of their household items themselves, often out of whatever they had on hand and often times recycling old materials, or converting items that had outlived their useful life. But your furniture need not look like it came out of the trash heap. There are tons of thrift shops, garage sales, and flea markets, not to mention your own garage or attic, that have materials that would make a great, recycled table. All you need is a few basic tools, a little patience, and some elbow grease.

You may approach this project in one of two ways. You can decide upon a particular style of table, pick a location in your home for it, and then go out seeking supplies to suit, or you can allow the materials that you find or fall in love with to dictate the style of table that you construct. I have personally done this both ways and I must say that allowing the materials to “birth” the project is the most fun and rewarding.

DIY door table

Recycled Door Window Seat Project

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Is it just me or can you never have enough storage? It seems like we are always in the same mode at my house of trying to find a home for all of our stuff. It took a full eight years for Laura to finally get the window seat that should have been included when we built the house. But you need not wait to have your own because this project goes together in an afternoon with minimal fuss.

Having a supply of old paneled wood doors at our disposal has provided us with design ideas and material for various projects like this one. The door that we selected for our window seat, by a stroke of luck, happens to be ideal for the cottage style that we so adore. It can sometimes be quite difficult to find what you’re looking for, while other times the perfect piece seems to speak to you from the junk pile. There are no guarantees in junking, so you have to resign yourself to go with the flow. I tend to think the challenge of finding materials is the best part, if you can get past the whole frustration thing.
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Vintage Tub Couch

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How to repurpose a cast iron tub into a couchRepurpose a Cast Iron Tub

As if taken directly out of Holly Golightly’s New York apartment, this project is timeless cool. In fact, for those of you with a great attention to detail, you may remember seeing one of these fabulous cast iron tub couches in that iconic film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

At first this project may seem daunting since we have to cut metal, but with the right tools it’s no big deal and you’ll have serious DIY cred for making your own.

Acquire the tub

You may already have an uncommitted cast iron tub lying around, but if not you can generally find them at architectural salvage shops and even swap sites. This project is a great candidate for tubs in less than perfect condition, so you may be able to get a great deal. For reference, at the time of this writing we paid $200 for a tub that we got from an individual on a social media swap site. I actually thought this was a little bit on the pricey side, but I’m cheap.

Bring help when you go tub shopping, this can be backbreaking work! Another tip to consider is the height of the vehicle that you intend to load your tub into. A low trailer may be easier to load than a pickup truck.