07/09/2004

How to improve your home, make it a more comfortable, pleasant place for your family to live while Respecting the Earth AND Your Budget
Trash to Treasure in the Hood

Decorating with Cents & Sense

By ComfyRock

 

 

Recycled Arts & Craft stuffs
a great way to involve your children, and get them to take pride in their home and appreciate the potential creative "treasure" value of "trash"

Samples from a 1999 Earth Day Contest

KinderArt - Art on a Shoestring - Recycled Art - projects for kids

 

Decorating with recyclables - assorted hints

Creative Wall Painting - using sponges or crumpled plastic bags and leftover paints of assorted colors, you can make your walls take on new life with patterns that "look like wallpaper", are washable and won't peel. When you grow tired of them, simply repaint.

Leftover ceramic tiles - using a wood substrate, you can make hot pads, serving trays, and decorative planters

Damaged & Tired Paneling

  • If just one wall is bad, remove the paneling on that wall, repair the plaster, and sponge paint a random pattern with colors that accent your furniture
  • If just the lower portion is bad, cover over it with "wainscot" paneling of a coordinated shade, and add a "chair rail border"
  • If it is too dark, or just in bad shape, repair dents, scratches, and other bruises with sprackle. Then paint with a "bonding primer", and give it a new look: sponge it, or use a tinted glaze with graining tools
  • If the paneling is okay, but is just "too much" (too dark or too overwhelming) remove it from one wall, or the upper half, or cut it on a slant. [Hint: tack a thin wood strip an inch and a half to one side of the cut line to use as a guide for your circular saw, with the saw blade protruding just enough to do the job. Uses safety glasses and have a helper.] Then repair the exposed wall, wallpaper or sponge paint.
  • Another idea is to cover a portion of the paneling with a decorative fabric (fabric adhesive) and set the covered area off with moldings.

Decorative Bottles - many bottles and jars (must be clear uncolored glass!) have textured or embossed decorative surfaces (some jam or preserve jars, some applesauce jars, Fleischman gin bottles - etc.). Soak off the labels in hot water and clean. Keep the caps or lids! Fill with fresh water, and add a drop or two of liquid vegetable coloring. For in-between shades, put in a drop from two different colors (yellow and blue to make green, yellow and red to make orange, blue and red to make purple, etc.) Then put your bottles on a window sill where they will sparkle in the sunlight. They can be all of one color, two colors, or a whole rainbow. Alternatively, put them on a shelf on an inner wall, with a small fluorescent tube behind them. For no money at all, you will have an uplifting eye-catcher. Make additional sets to give as inexpensive gifts of rainbow sunshine. Plain clear bottles work too - they just aren't as eye catching.

 

Reborn Furniture

Old Lamps - people frequently throw out old lamps when they can be saved and given a new life.

  • it is a simple thing to replace a lamp socket with switch or a lamp cord
  • if just the shade is bad, replacement shades are inexpensive at discount stores like Walmart
  • ceramic bases can easily be repainted, in new colors if you want
  • look for salvageable lamps both at second hand outlets and on the curbside at moving time

Refinishing Wood Furniture - dressers, tables, chairs, etc.

  • removing old finish - if the item has a varnish or lacquer finish, this can easily be removed with "refinisher" from the hardware store, applied with a brush and removed with steel wool. Then you can finish the item with tongue oil, lacquer, varnish stain, polyurethane or polyacrylic (polyacrylic is more expensive but it is water based and can be recoated in less than an hour and ready to use an hour after that).
  • paint the item - remove the varnish, lacquer, or polyurethane coat first (use paint remover for the polyurethane) and then prime the sanded, dried piece before painting. Do not be afraid to turn your item into a work of art - be whimsical and creative using bands and spots and flecks and splashes of color. Either use semi-gloss paints, or if you are using flat paints, put a protective coat or two of polyacrylic on top.
  • new knobs, pulls, trim - you can give the item a new look by replacing old and missing knobs, pulls, and trim with new ones. Look for close outs, or, better yet, make a practice of scavenging knobs and handles from curbside discard furniture cabinets and dressers. When you need some, you will have a ready selection, free.
  • giving a piece a new use
    • find an old chest that is two tall? Carefully remove the top, chop the chest at the line of the bottom of the top (or other) drawer, and replace the top.
    • Add a built in planter - find a plastic dishpan, trace the outline on the top of the item, draw a new line a quarter inch inside that to hold the lip, and cut with a saber saw. Fill the bottom of the pan with pebbles, then planting soil if you will use real plants, with green foam etc. if you are using artificial ones.
    • Replace drawers with shelves and doors for that "armoire" look
    • I once found a discarded bentwood rocker. The cane seat had been busted through. I disassembled it, then took the two sides and bolted them together runner to runner to make a beautiful art nouveau butterfly style headboard for a twin bed, hanging it directly on the wall.
    • Look at every discarded or soon to be discarded item. Forget what it is or was. Clear your mind and imagine what it could be!
    • Take a section of old picket fence, cut it down in size (height and width) and repaint it cheerfully. Mount it to the wall to serve as a headboard.

 

Recyclables outdoors

Bins- Keep your yard and grounds neat and clean by having trash bins at key locations - make it EZ for everyone to discard properly. Have one bin for glass, aluminum, and plastics (#1 & #2 only) and another for paper and miscellaneous. Put a set of bins on your porch or deck - wherever people or lounge

Planters & Birdhouses are items easy to make from recycled materials and they add beauty and interest

Deck, Porch & Lawn Sculpture - these can be made of metal, wood, plastic, glass, and ceramic scraps - just let your imagination run wild and have fun

Benches, Chairs, and More - Replacing indoor furniture? Sometimes the old items can be fixed up for outdoor use on the deck or patio or in the yard. After you give wooden furniture a face lift, you can cover it with several coats of polyacrylic to make the finish moisture resistant. Make slipcovers for chairs and sofas out of water-repellent fabrics. Got an upholstered and skirted rocker with a bad rocker or swivel rocker base? Remove the base and sit the chair squarely on an old tire. The skirt will hide the tire, and you will have a firm, gently giving chair.

 

Hints

Using & Picking Colors - don't worry about what others think. What colors do you like? What colors do YOU think go great together? (Hint: look through your closet for your favorite shirts or blouses or dresses, pick one and use that to select a color scheme you know you already love.) Pick the lighter softer one for the background or basic color, and the other or others as theme accent color to be picked up in draperies or blinds or pillows or wall art.

If the "sight lines" between rooms are very prominent (if you have wide halls, archways, or a very open plan) it is good to continue the color scheme throughout that part of the house. But feel free to reverse prime and accent colors, or to shift accent colors from one room to the next.

Some people are afraid of color and like everything neutral. Others are confident enough to make their homes awash with all the colors of the rainbow. Be yourself and go with your instincts. Once a visitor saw me doing a room in blues and greens and remarked that those colors did not go good together. To which I replied, "Yes. The Lord sure messed up when he made the sky blue and the grass and trees green, didn't he?" So go with your instincts. It is your home. It should express "You". That is what the function of the home is - to be a safe comfortable haven of you-ness in the midst of a strange and often unfriendly world.

 

Get Fresh Ideas From Cable TV

Home & Garden TV - HGTV - #37 on Time Warner in Milwaukee, has several shows always full of fresh ideas for converting Trash to Treasure:

  • Decorting Cents always features a Trash to Treasure segment. This show has a new segment every week and daily reruns.
  • Treasure Makers is on once a week
  • Country at Home often features old and worn items
  • Room by Room often does a room in "Shabby Chique" style using old and discarded items. This show has a new segment every week and daily reruns.

 

Consider Trash to Treasure Conversion as a "Cottage Industry" Opportunity

One Man's trash is another man's treasure - and that means that there is a virtually endless supply of discarded "trash" out there, trash with possibilities limited only by your imagination. The best time to go "treasure hunting" is around the first of the month - "moving day" when many people throw out on the curb older, shabby items that they don't want to cart to their new addresses. Of course, this pile often contains a lot of broken or damaged items. But if you are at all handy, much of this "broken" and "damaged" stuff can be fixed easily enough with a little patience.

This is a field you can enter as cautiously as fits you. Try a few objects. If you are satisfied with the results, see if they "sell." It may be that what "turns you on" doesn't do much for others. On the other hand you may quickly find a winning style. You can work with small items, refurbishing them, or turning them into something quite different from their original uses. There are possibilities too for specialization. There is an abundant curbside supply of:

  • lamps that are easily enough repaired and freshened up for those who know the tricks
  • upholstered furniture, for those who know how to reupholster - an endless supply of "frames" that are usually still sturdy - perhaps just missing a leg or two
  • "Case goods" - dressers and chests and tables, especially those cheaply made of pressed board or particle board, are frequently pretty "far gone" and not worth the trouble. But solid wood items are another matter. If you can't restore the piece for its original function, you can disassemble it and use the wood for novel new purposes
  • small appliances and electronics - some artists make collages and sculptures out of old components in which only their shape and form and color are important, not their original use. Their are sculptors who use old tableware (knives, forks, spoons) exclusively.

The main thing is that in "one man's trash" there is abundant raw materials, materials with character worth recycling, materials that are FREE. Your imagination and creativity are also FREE. You will need to acquire some tools, depending on the case, and other supplies like paints, stains, and other finishes. "Cottage Industries" are things you can get into slowly. You can try them out "at home" to see if your ideas and talents work or not, before you commit to them. You don't have to quit your "day job" if you have one, until you have demonstrated to yourself that a steady revenue stream is achievable from your new treasure making hobby.

And don't forget your own "trash" - items you were about to throw out, or give to Good Will. Turn on the spotlight of your hidden creativity and take another look at each such item. What would it take to turn that shabby item into something chic? Turning Trash Into Treasure Starts at Home.

Get in the habit of careful and thorough recycling. Have a complete set of bins in your kitchen, and another on the front porch. (And why not start turning those recycling bins into artistic 'treasures" just to prime the pump of your creativity. Not sure about something? Put it in a special pile and revisit the pile from time to time. Sometimes winning ideas take a while to simmer in one's brain. And don't overlook everyday discards! Some artistic people have made a living making things out of - would you believe it? - tin cans and bottles and jars!

In the end, if you can't sell your creations, you can still give them to Good Will. Nothing is to be lost, and much to be gained by trying. For many gifted people in our disadvantaged neighborhoods, this "home business" could be a natural fit.

"Being successful" means simply "having tried" one more time than you "failed."

 

FreeCycling - A new concept

FreeCycling is similar to recycling, but it is based upon the principal of finding new homes for things that are still of value that might be needed by others. Or for finding things that someone else wants to discard and you would like to have. ALL FOR FREE!

for more, Check it out on the Earthday Page

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Milwaukee-Freecycle

 

Postscript

How About a "Trash to Treasure Leftovers Fair"? - Neighbors could take advantage of housecleaning to gather together half used cans of paint (tightly covered!), leftover lumber, wood, tiles, fencing, carpet scraps of useful size, unneeded tools in good condition, lamps and light fixtures, pictures and statues, furniture and furnishings they are ready to discard etc. We could have one big Trash to Treasure rummage event. Everything would be free for the taking, first come, first served. The Sanitation Department could pick up the leftovers. This could be an annual event for the neighborhood. If you like this idea and want to help hash it around, contact us.

This page is in the Sprit of Earth Day - saving money and beautifying our surroundings and helping protect the Earth all at once!

 

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