Salvage Projects

This time of year, I make the final preparations of the house and garden before winter fully arrives. A trip to the city landfill is usually part of the process. All summer, I put items in the bed of my old truck, and if November comes and they're still there, it's off to the dump with them.
However, I make sure I can't find any other use for things before they are recycled or discarded.


The birdbath shown above began life as a 1960s-vintage lamp. I removed the brass fitting and marble base, and connected the neck and bowl together with glue and clear caulk.

A metal canning-jar ring at the top provides support for the "bath," which is a plate I found at a thrift store. For internal support, an old wooden broom handle runs through the birdbath, extending down into a cinder block base filled with sand.

To my delight, the birdbath's psychedelic-'60s color perfectly matched the foliage in the garden. As I was working on this, a young man came walking down the alley and paused to say, "Hey, nice bong!"  Perfect.

This planter box was made from small cupboard doors that a friend was throwing away. I had planned to line the box with heavy plastic, but, just in time, I spotted a plastic tub in my garden shed that was exactly the right size to fit in the box. And, it matched the green wallpaper insets on the doors. I used the door's brass latches to connect the sides of the box together.

Here are some other things that have managed to save themselves by being made into something else.

Well-weathered fence wood makes a great seat on top of an old wrought-iron aquarium base. 

This chair and table legs were rescued from a dumpster. The table top is a window with mesh-patterned glass.

A larger window with waffle-pattern glass made an interesting table top when paired with the base of a cottage oak table, also rescued from the trash.

I covered the table base with a batik silk scarf given to me by a friend who visited India in the 1960s, and I love how the scarf shows through the glass tabletop.

Our town finally implemented curbside recycling, so the amount of paper, cardboard, plastic, and metal that winds up in the landfill has been considerably reduced. We don't have a way to recycle glass as yet, but much of my glass is repurposed through the decorative windows I make. (See http://encoreglass.blogspot.com for examples.)

Happy Salvaging!