Makin' Do Tuesday: This and That

Welcome to Makin' Do  Tuesday!

Since I'm still playing catch up from the weekend, I thought I'd share a few odds and ends.

Last week, Ed and I went to help my friend Mary lift a new heating stove off a rental truck. It was going to be several hours before another friend would be able to install it, and she wanted to return the truck. I've known Mary most of my life. She is an only child, and still lives in the house where she grew up. Her parents have both passed on, and like my grandfather, they never threw anything away. Her father was a skilled carpenter, and there are some wonderful things in the house. Maybe, some day, she will let me take pictures to share with you.

While we were there, the conversation turned to this blog, and she said it reminded her of  how her mother and aunt repurposed a pair of old shoes to fix a screen door. Apparently, the hinges broke, and they really needed the door, so they made do. They found an old pair of shoes, took the soles off, and used them for hinges. It worked!

After listening to her story, somehow my mind went from that to one of the best cases of making do that Hollywood ever came up with. This clip is from "Operation Petticoat"

Love this movie!


I'm still working on the bottles, but still haven't got them as clean as I would like. I have them soaking in our old buddy vinegar for now.

My office/workshop is a prime example of making do. The room itself was, at one time, part of the dining room. A previous tenant had both a son and a daughter and only one bedroom. A decision was made to close in a portion of the dining room in order to create a small room for the daughter. Key word: small. The basic shape is a 6” x 10” rectangle, but the end of the room where the door is, is only about 4 feet across. The rest of the dining room is now a funky little hallway leading to the other bedroom.

Anyway, the room was painted for a little girl with pinks and greens, which you will be able to see in the pictures. When we first moved in, Kyle was still at home, so it was Katherine's room. When he moved out, she got the big room.

First, I was just going to use it for books and other storage. Ed built shelves and we moved some of our bookshelves in here. Almost every bookshelf I have was either given to me, or I got it at a yard sale for two or three dollars. When I finally decided I needed my own place to work, I did a little reorganizing, and had Ed build more shelves.

If you will notice, almost everything I use for storage someone else would throw away.

This is not the best shelf Ed ever built. I think he was having an off day, but it is built from the same wood fencing that had made the sawhorses from. The little organizer on the desk was a $2.00 Goodwill find. The desk came from a friend who was cleaning house. The containers on the shelves are mostly food container jars. I love clear glass jars. I can see what I have at a glance. These are filled with beads.

More of the desk. The drawing on the wall was given to me by a little girl from church. Oh that lamp? I paid $3.00 at a thrift store.

These were the first shelves Ed put in this room. Notice the coffee cans and kitty litter boxes. The litter boxes have duct tape labels, so I know what is in them.

Kyle made the little shelf/hanger in shop class when he was in highschool. We brought the shelving near the ceiling with us when we moved here in 2010. It sat outside for about two years. The wreaths will soon have their own blog post.

More of that high shelf. Its full of Louis L'Amour paperbacks.

This is underneath the window. I think it was the top of a hutch. I've had it for so long that I don't remember where I got it.

This may be one of the few shelves I paid full price for. I originally bought it for CD's, It is screwed to the wall, so it won't lean over. The shelf to the left came from a yard sale.

This is the far end of the room. The little table on the left is where I do all my writing. You can see the other end of it in the first picture. We originally bought it to use at craft fairs. The pencil holder is a mixed nut can covered with scraps from an old dictionary.

Anyway, so now you've seen where I work. 

See ya tomorrow,

Connie