The same purpose…

So as frugal and eco-friendly people, we really love to repurpose things.  But does it really have to be a hugely different endeavor?  No way! 

One of our eternal problems is storage, of course (us and the rest of the world, I know).  Nick’s office had little to no storage other than one small desk cabinet.  When I moved in, I brought a big box store laminate bookcase with me, but it didn’t survive the move in one piece, alas.  For a while, it sat in the office in a rather sad state, half undone and very wobbly.  After navigating the floor full of papers and computer parts for the LAST TIME, I declared that I would install some shelving in that room if it killed me.

Nick was actually rather amenable to the idea, and we decided that the bookshelf could still serve a good purpose in life, and continue on as wall shelves!  Why buy new chunks of melamine when we had a batch ready to go?  So after deconstructing the old bookshelf, I filled in the old holes and painted over the spots and edges, and had a batch of 8 black shelves, ready to go.

Another $30 worth of brackets from Home Depot and we were ready to go (with new shelves, we would have run close to $200).  We mapped out where the shelves should go, and started balancing and anchoring!  Finally, we have a delightfully organized and customized set of shelves for Nick to display his fun stuff, and store his work stuff.  Because there is a lot of stuff going on.  One tier was placed high, for displays, and a few other shelves were placed lower to hold books and CDs.  The shelves are VERY solid and are rated to hold up to 60lbs each.

Yeah, he’s still a little miffed that I won’t let him keep the Voltron on the mantle in the living room, but he’s a little happier now.

How’s your recycle/upcycle/repurpose project going?

Tags: decor, decorating, frugality, DiY