Repurposed Thursday: "The Best Laid Plans"

Actually the orignal line was "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men", and it comes from a poem written by Robert Burns in 1785. You can read the whole thing here.

Anyway, the point is that often things don't turn out like we plan, and today was one of those days for me.

It started out great. I have three repurposing projects that I wanted to at least get started so I could share them with you tonight, but alas, it was not to be!

Ed was off today, and as he often does on his day off, he cooked breakfast. He made whole wheat pancakes and bacon on the electric griddle. Now, our kitchen is very small, and we only have electrical outlets on one wall. The kitchen counters are along the opposite wall, which means if we want to plug something in on the counter, we have to run extension cords across the floor. I'm sure you can see where that could cause problems.

After we ate, Ed cleaned up most of the mess, but forgot to unplug the griddle. He went outside to work on the fence where Meeko keeps getting out. About ten minutes later, I was in the bathroom when the phone rang. In my haste to get to the phone, which meant a trip through the kitchen, I didn't even look at the floor. I got my foot hung in the extension cord.... and I'm not sure what exactly happened. I didn't fall, but I did do some fancy footwork. The grill wasn't so lucky. It was on the kitchen floor in a bazillion peices.

I did manage to get to the phone. It was Ed. He was up on the hill behind the house, and needed me to come out for a minute. Yes, I'll admit it, I was a little annoyed. Once I did what he needed, I returned to the task of cleaning up the mess.

As I started picking up the broken plastic, I almost slipped in what I soon figured out was a combination of coffee and bacon grease. Yuck! My coffee cup had been thrown to the floor too, but it was tougher than the griddle.

Of course, I am loathe to throw anything away that I might be able to use. I put the broken plasic in the trash, but took the griddle part out to the lab to be stored until I can figure out what to do with it. I'm thinking it might make a nice chalk board.

While I was cleaning up the rest of the mess in the kitchen, my ribs really started to hurt, as if I had something too tight around them. To make a long boring story short, the pain got bad enough that I took a naproxin and went to bed. Its a little better this evening, but I'm still feeling pretty "stove up" as the old folks used to say.

I must have seriously wrenched something when I tripped.

Needless to say, there was no repurposing today.

Hopefully, I'll be better tomorrow.

See ya then!

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: Notebook Calendar

Welcome to Repurposed Thursday!

First I have to give a shout out to my oldest son, James, who is 27 today! Happy Birthday honey!

Do you have things in your house that you keep, but you don't really know why?  I do.  Like this notebook (aka loose leaf binder). It was given to me somewhere along the line, and I really don't have a use for it, but it was too good to throw out. I suppose I could have donated it to Goodwill or our church yard sale, but that never occured to me until now.

Today, still working on getting my house in order, sorting papers, and generally trying to figure out where I am going to put everything, I was once again confronted with the notebook. I opened it to take the few papers that were in it out, and it hit me: I knew what to do with it!

I went to the computer to see if I could find downloadable calendar pages. Well, of course I could, so I printed them out. At that point, I was going to take pictures of everything as I did it, but my camera battery was dead. (Note to self, "you really need a second camera battery") I did get this one of the front of the notebook.

Then, I couldn't find my three-hole punch, so I used the one-hole. I laid the paper up next to the rings in the binder, and using a ruler to help me keep even, I marked three dots on the paper. Then I used the hole punch to punch out the dots. Then I put them in the binder. It was a perfect fit.

I went to the trash and pulled out the piece of self-adhesive dry erase paper, that I had just pulled of the wall, where it was not being used. I used it to cover the inside of the front of the notebook. I attached two of those removable wall-hanger thingys on the outside of the front of the notebook. I used a large clip and a peice of string to make a pen holder. Then I put the whole thing on the wall next to the chalkboard that I painted on the wall next to the phone.

A little later, I decided to go hunt a dry erase marker, which meant an expedition into Katherine's room. I found one, and wrote one of my favorite scriptures on the dry erase paper. Then I put the marker on top of the binder rings. I don't know if it will stay like that, but it's there for now

This evening, the battery was charged so I took these pictures.
What do you think?  The best part was that everything that went into it was stuff I already had.

Have a great evening!

See ya tomorrow!

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: The Book Clock

Welcome to Repurposed Thursday!

As I told you Monday, I finally got the clock finished. There were however, a few challenges along the way.

Since my clock spindle was long, I knew I would have to put it all the way through the book, with the battery compartment on the back. First, I couldn't find a drill bit big enough. I know there are wood bits here somewhere, but I don't know where Ed put them. I finally found a bit that would work and drilled through the book. I got the clock all put together, put the battery in, and it worked....for about two minutes. After some trial and error, I finally figured out that the spindle was catching on the paper inside the book. So, I got out my trusty exacto knife and cut an inch square around the spindle. Success!

Now for the mice. I bought some Sculpey clay. I had never worked with it before, but I found it very easy to use, although I still need some practice. My real issue came from the baking. The directions say 15 minutes per quarter inch of clay. Ok, well, some of it is a quarter inch, some is a half inch, some is a sixteenth inch. I set the timer for 20 minutes to see what would happen. Well, they have singed ears and tails, but I think they turned out ok for a first time. I glued one to the top and one to the bottom corner. The latter looks more like a cat than a mouse, but it works, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Here is the finished product. It is hanging over my desk in the office.

The rest of today and tomorrow are going to be busy. Tonight is Betty's visitation, and Katherine has a band concert. Tomorrow is Betty's funeral and our church is providing the meal for the family. I will talk to you sometime tomorrow. I just found a new recipe that I have to try!

See ya tomorrow!

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: Not Like I Planned

Welcome to Repurposed Thursday!

Well, I didn't get anything done on the clock, although I did find another kid's book that I want to give the same treatment.

Since I didn't do that, I thought I would share something I did a while back. Remember when I said I kind of went crazy with book pages? Well, here are a few more things I covered.

This is the switch plate in my office. It was intended for a little girl, and I really didn't like it. I don't like the paint job either, but that is more than I am able to tackle at this point. 

This is better. I would like to do a whole room like this. 

 I got this the day we went to the Goodwill outlet.

Here is the top view.

Here it is covered in dictionary pages. 

I also have a gallon-sized, plastic vinegar bottle, that I cut the top off of, and covered with pages. I don't have a picture of it, but sits just below the light switch, and is what holds all those rolls of brown paper that you can see in the first picture. 

Lord willing, I'll have the clocks done next week. I'm thinking of making the mice out of clay. We'll see.

See ya tomorrow!

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: Sort of

Welcome to Repurposed Thursday!

My plan for today was to start on a new project and share with you as far as I got, as well as my idea for finishing. Well, I never even got to start, but I'll tell you my plan.

I love the idea of repurposing books that might otherwise be thrown away. I particularly like the idea of turning them into clocks. In a bunch of books I rescued was a library copy of Beverly Clearly's "Runaway Ralph" Well, it looks like Ralph, or some of his relatives, chewed on it, so its not going to make a great clock by itself.

I was at least going to get the clock mechanism installed in it today. My plan is either to make or buy (make is my preference) some mice to go on top of the book and on the tray below. I got the tray as part of my haul from the Goodwill Closeout store, so its cost is about $.88.  Anyway, this is as far as I got. Hopefully by next week, I'll be able to show you more.

Now, the reason I didn't get anything done was because about the time I was getting ready to start, I was talking to Ed about something while he was putting some rather large logs in the wood stove. Suddenly, the stove pipe was on the floor, and smoke was coming out the back of the stove. We both switched to emergency mode (which included praying while we were moving). Thank God for the heat gloves that Ed brought home from work. We were able to use them to hold the pipe while we tried to get it put back in. Still it took about twenty minutes, and probably another twenty to get our blood presure back down!

Then Katherine came in and told us there was no water cold water in the Kitchen sink. There is ALWAYS cold water in the kitchen sink. We keep a heater running in there as soon as the temperature drops below 20 degrees. We have a cistern, so we can't keep our tap dripping. The cold water in the kitchen is where the water comes into the house. Uh Oh!. If that is frozen with the heater blowing right there on it, it must be frozen under the house, and we have no way to get to it! Neat! Ed had already drawn water the night before as a "just in case" measure, so we had that, but it wasn't going to last long. So, we decided we should probably get out and go get some bottled water.

First we had to dig my car out. Thankfully, the snow is the dry powdery type, so shoveling was a breeze, what I got to do of it anyway. Ed saw me shoveling, and took my shovel from me. We got to the store, but our road is still a skating rink. I told Ed that if Katherine had school tomorrow, the bus was not going to come down our road. I would get a call in the morning telling me I had to bring her to the end of the road for the bus to pick her up. If that happened, I would just take her to school. If I had to warm up the car, I might as well driver her the other mile and a half to school.

The second issue, if Katherine had school tomorrow, was the issue of a shower. Well, I didn't want to use drinking water for bathing, so I told Ed we needed to start melting snow of the stove, so we could use it for sponge baths.

I just got the call....no school again tomorrow.   

See ya then!

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: A Ragged Little Box

Welcome to Repurposed Thursday!

Last week I showed you how we disassembled/demolished my old upright piano. During that time, an idea came to me for a gift for Ed. Anytime we've visited an antique store or flea market and came across a valet box, he has always spent a little extra time looking at it. He told me once, that when he was a kid, he thought they were just the coolest things. So, looking at the pieces of wood from the piano, I thought that I would make him a large valet box for Christmas. The fact that I had never even attempted to build anything like that didn't even enter my mind. How hard could it be?

I had decided to use one of the side pieces of the piano because it was wide and long, and I could get everything that I needed from one piece of wood. My first obstacle was finding a time when Ed was at work, and the weather cooperated. By that time, it was fall, and this is Missouri...My original plan was to get my son Kyle to come cut the pieces for me. I never could get that coordinated either. Ok, well, I was just going to have to do it myself. Finally, in October, the weather and Ed's work schedule cooperated.  I had watched Ed, for four years, every time he measured twice to cut once. I knew how to do that. I used two out door chairs to lay the wood across, then measured and marked the wood. Piece of cake!

Now to cut them. We have a battery operated skill saw that I had never used in my life...but I had watched Ed do it. The first cut went beautifully! This is going to be great! I'll get all the pieces cut this morning, and I”ll be able to put them together tomorrow morning! There were a few things, however, that I had not considered: The battery, and the age of the wood.  About half way through the second cut, the saw just stopped. Ok, well, I'll just change the battery (we have three). Apparently that one was dead too. I would soon learn, and I later told Ed, we need new batteries! Never mind that I was also trying to cut through one hundred-year-old wood! I also encountered the problem of very old veneer chipping off.

Anyway, I got two pieces cut that day and had to quit because I had no more battery. A few weeks went by as I waited for time to work on it again. Still, I couldn't keep a charge in the batteries long enough to cut anything.  However, this time, David was outside, and I mentioned my problem to him. He offered me the use of his skill saw...a full size electric one. Well, I couldn't very well say no. I needed to finish that box! I said Ok, thanked him and waited for him to bring the saw. It's about three times the size of our little battery operated saw. Have I told you that my hands aren't very big? I could have used three of them that day, but I got it done! Unfortunately, I didn't have as much control over the larger saw, and the cuts were not all that straight.

 I didn't realize how much until I started to put it together. I used deck screws and wood glue, and my cordless drill. Thankfully, it has a great battery. After a few attempts, I finally got the box together. Then I realized that I had put the side pieces on inside out. At that point, I was tired and not about to take it apart. Next came the lid with hinges and tiny screws presenting a whole new challenge, but finally, it was done.

My original plan was to line the box with fabric, and burn his initials on the lid. Well, I didn't have any fabric that I thought would go well with the dark veneer of the box, so I decided to fall back to decoupage and dictionary pages. I also wanted to honor Ed's relationship with the Lord, and his love for scripture, so I overlaid Bible verses over the dictionary pages for the two outer sides of the box (the ones I put on backward. Inside the lid, I overlaid an original poem on the pages. Overlaying is pretty simple, most of the time. I'll explain it in a future post. This one is getting a little long.

Burning his initials presented another challenge because the veneer was thick and I wanted to get to the wood underneath. It took a few hours, and my hand was very tired, but I finally finished. By rhat time, it was about two weeks before Christmas!

All in all, I thought it was pretty pitiful, but Ed loved it! When I tried to apologize for the mistakes in it, he wouldn't hear it. He says it's perfect! I love that man!

See ya tomorrow!

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: More Piano

Well, I went to see my doctor today, and he said pleurisy is possible, because I do have a little rattle in my chest, but he didn't think it was likely. He asked if I had been coughing, and I told him I hadn't. He said all the tests the hospital did came back normal, but something was obviously going on, and I did the right thing going to the ER. He did a few other blood tests to cover the very few things that the hospital didn't. We should have the results in a few weeks.

Last week, I talked about moving out the old piano last August. Over the next few months, we slowly started taking it apart. One of our biggest problems was trying to loosen the wires on the sound board. I knew they had to be loosened for our own safety, but we did not have equipment to turn the tuning pegs, so sadly, we were left with no choice but to cut them.

It had the most beautiful green cast iron sound board. It probably weighs 200 lbs. It's still in our front yard, because we don't know what to do with it. We have a friend that hauls scrap metal, but he hasn't seemed to interested in it. I've seen them repurposed into wall art and table tops, but I think it would be way too heavy for anything like that.

 I assume this was a serial number, but I never have been able to find out too much about the company that made the piano.

I did want to try and keep the name plate. Eventually, we did get it out and I have it in my office, where it waits for me to come up with a repurposing plan for it. 

Originally, I wanted to turn the piano into a full sized entertainment center, but the way it came apart, left that project unlikely. We wanted to loosen the sound board while leaving the front "shelf" intact. (I don't know how we thought we could do that). It would not loosen from the front at all, so Ed tried to get to the bolts from the back. 

That is when we discovered that the piano was put together with what looks like scraps of wood. 

See these top pieces? The are all glued together with something that held for over a 100 years. It wasn't about to come apart now!

So we went back to the front and realized the shelf was going to have to go,

 Next the sides came off

Still there was no way to get to the bolts from the front, so we turned it over again. Remember I said that sound board weighs about 200 pounds. Thats not counting all the wood still attached at this point.

The boards on top and the posts of the bottom have to come off, but how?

Yeah, thats a skill saw. The chain saw got into the act too, at one point. 

Success! Sort of. Now we had to remove 100 year old bolts. Sometimes, it was a matter of removing the board from the bolt instead of the other way around, but finally, the sound board was free, and so was the name plate!

We now have all the pieces, inlcuding keys, bolts, boards, etc. (except for the sound board) in what we call "The Lab". The lab is a metal shed, that we fixed up for Katherine to play in. While she still has some things in there, it has now become more of a temporary storage shed.  I'm looking forward to warmer weather when I can get out there and start playing with all those great pieces of wood. I did however, already repurpose one of the sides.

I'll share that with you next week.

See ya tomorrow!

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: The Piano

Welcome to Repurpose Thursday!

I always wanted to learn to play the piano, but when I was growing up, we couldn't afford one, so I learned what I could here and there.

Somewhere around 1989, when I married my second husband, the wife of one of his friends told me something that changed my life...no not on a grand scale...but changed nonetheless. She had an old upright piano and she said “If you can move it, you can have it.” I don't remember all the details, but my husband got several of his army buddies to help him move the 500+ pound monster, and at the age of 26, for the first time in my life, I had a  piano! I was ecstatic!

I have never learned to play well, probably because of my lack of  focus, but I loved that piano. My oldest son took lessons for a few years, and Katherine has had a few lessons too. By the time my boys were grown, and Ed and I were together, the damper pedals were broken, so any playing was out of tune and muddy. I had already been told that the 100-year-old piano could not be fixed or tuned, and it was pretty much worthless, but I couldn't afford a new one, and I was seriously attached to it anyway. You all know how I am about throwing stuff away.

Last summer another friend made a similar offer. She had a smaller piano, probably from the 1940's that she kept in her book store. The problem was that the legs were unstable and she needed to be able to move it around. Did I want it? Absolutely!

Ed says, “so what are we going to do with the old one?” Repurpose it of course!

We did have to overcome a few obstacles that included getting a dolly to move the new piano from the store to the house, coordinating my sons to come and help, and getting the old piano out of the house.
I should mention here that Ed has nicknamed my youngest son, Kyle, “Bam Bam” after the Flintstones character. Kyle is our muscle man. He can move the old piano across the room by himself. If we had needed that, there wouldn't have been a problem. We didn't. We needed it moved out the front door, which is just barely wider than the piano. The angle has to be just right, or it isn't going.

It was hot that day.

Here is just a sample of the two hour ordeal to get the piano out the front door.

They finally got it outside, the new one in, and were ready to call it a day, but I wasn't . Over the next few hours, I did manage to get the two of the front pieces off: The one on the top that covered the keys, and the one on the bottom  that covered the dampers.

For my first repurpose project, that was all I needed, along with a couple dozen old encyclopedias and text books. Our television, DVD player, etc. had all sat on top of the old piano. The new piano was too small, so I was going to need a make do entertainment center. Of course, its a temporary one, but I like it.

The trunk next to it, was another repurpose project. I got the old trunk from a flea market for about $7.00. It was pretty beat up looking, but it was sound. I painted the trim black, and used Mod Podge to cover it with old wallet sized pictures. I had tons from old school pictures and professional portraits. Its a great way to display a lot of photographs. Inside I have all my photo albums, baby books, and other family history treasures. Ed bolted some casters on a piece of plywood and sat the trunk on it. That way, we can move it easily.

As for the piano, Over the next few days, I got the keys and dampers out, but then the weather stopped cooperating and we had to put the deconstruction on hold. I'll tell you some more about it next week, and show you my second project from the piano.

See ya tomorrow,

Connie

Repurposed Thursday: A Tree and A Vase

Welcome to Repurposed Thursday!

Repurposed Thursday is where I am going to share my repurposing projects. Some of them turned out great, and others...not so much. I still have a lot to learn, and need a whole lot more practice. There are a ton of blogs out there by people who are crazy good at this. Some day, I may be one of them, but for now...

The idea for this project started for me last fall. I've seen it elsewhere on the internet since then, but I hadn't when the idea first came to me.

We plant a garden every summer, and a big part of that is tomato plants. Tomatoes are vines, and to keep them in one place, they have to be staked to some kind of support. Enter tomato cages. They come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and price tags. My cages are the cheap type and I have had them for several years. Next year, I'm doing something different, and hopefully, that will involve more repurposing.

My cages are pretty much shot. When we cleaned out the garden last year, we set the cages off to the side of the driveway. One day, when we were going out to the car, I stopped to look at those cages. I was not going to throw them away, but what could I do with them? Then it hit me! I turned to Ed, pointing at the cages, and said, “Christmas trees!” He said his standard “Uh-huh. That's a good idea”, which translates to “Oh Lord, help me! She's at it again!”

The last few years, we've had a very small table-top tree, because that is really all we have room for. Katherine was already complaining about the “dinky” tree before we ever got it out of storage. She saw four-foot trees in Kmart, and said, “Those aren't too big! Could we get one of those, please!!!!” I said “no” of course, because I already had a better idea.

Here is the finished product. Since I (again) did not take before pictures, I took some as I was taking it apart so you can get an idea of how it went together.. Katherine loved it, and even Ed was impressed.
Oh, and it didn't cost me a dime. I used things I already had. Thinking ahead to next year though, and wondering if maybe I might be able to sell a few.

As I was taking the gold garland off the tree,  I remembered where it came from and I had to laugh. My dad used to own a business where he tore down old buildings. A lot of times, he would be told that if he found anything inside, it was his. He found all kinds of stuff. He was also very good at picking things up that other people threw out. Anyway, one year, probably about 1995, he came for a visit, and brought me a garbage bag full of gold garland. Yep, the same gold garland. There isn't much left, but I still use what there is!

Without the decorations. You can see the  frame around the bottom.

I used four wired garlands. The kind with the little wired "branches" comimg off them.

I used duct tape to hold the top together.  The cage is ready to go back outside.

The next project was done last fall. A lot of things came together at once, allowing me to create something that has spent the last few months displayed in our living room. As I've said before, Ed and I were married in September. A dear friend got me a beautiful bouquet of cream roses and other purple flowers. My sister told me that I could dry them upside down which I did. Several weeks later, I'm looking at the upside down bouquet hanging from a piece of twine, and thinking: “Now what?” I had no idea what to do with it.

Right around the same time, I discovered Angie's blog at Knick of Time. I wanna be like Angie when I grow up! Anyway, she was decorating with book pages. I didn't think I could bring myself to tear pages out of books, but what if they were already falling apart. I had some of those, and I already knew how to do decoupage. So I kind of started looking for things that I could maybe cover in book pages. I will say that I have since gone a little nuts,

As you know, I try not to throw anything away that I might be able to reuse. At least not until it starts taking over the house. I started drinking almond milk this last year, and my favorite kind comes in a really cool plastic bottle.

Plastic bottle + old book pages + mod podge + twine + dried wedding bouquet = awesome dried flowers in a rustic-looking  vase.  What do you think?

Yeah, its a little wrinkled. Like I said, I need practice.
See you tomorrow,
Connie