Shipping Pallet Kitchen Island
Sheetrocking too expensive and time consuming? Answer = Yes. One alternative is to build a wall with doors. Much more interesting than sheetrock and takes a minimal amount of skills.
Thanks to Charles and Hudson’s old pallet shed post for reminding me about this video. The shed looks like crap but it’s a great concept and cool song.
Shutter upcycling mania! All found via Pinterest. Please click on images for sources as the Pinterest embed code doesn’t work with this blog. (Is it me?)
You didn’t really think I was going to post 101, did you?
Source: southernliving.com via Lisa on Pinterest
No words. Just look at the pretty pictures and click on them for more info.
Source: Uploaded by user via Holly on Pinterest
Source: designsponge.com via Christine on Pinterest
Source: shadesoflight.com via Hello on Pinterest
This is a guest post by Jeremy who loves writing about living green, saving money and DIY. He is from EasyApplianceParts, a DIY resource and retailer of appliance replacement parts.
We spend almost one third of our life in the bedroom. The bedroom is our space to relax, unwind and leave the stress of the world behind. Creating a bedroom that is your own sanctuary can be done without having to spend a fortune redecorating. How? The answer is upcycling. This means taking existing items and repurposing them to build the bedroom of your dreams. The recipe for an upcycling designer is a layer of personal design style, followed by a cup of creativity, two cups of the materials you’ll need and a sprinkle patience, topped off by a do-it-yourself attitude.
Create your own furniture
Buying a brand new bedroom set can be expensive. Most of the bedroom sets currently available from furniture stores are made from particle-board based wood. Create your own durable and stronger bedroom set by using previously used wood such as boards, planks and wood pallets. Solid wood pieces can be found in antique stores, yard sales, estate auctions or old barns.
Making your own bed – Wood pallets used to transport goods can be obtained from nurseries or home stores. They can be transformed into just about anything – desks, chairs, end tables, benches and beds. Homedit has developed a stylish and easy to build platform bed made from wood pallets. The best part of this idea is that it costs next to nothing to build. The only materials that are needed are wood pallets, hinges and casters. Add your mattress, paint and you’re done. An extra added benefit to a wood pallet platform bed is it can be enlarged or reduced as required.
Extra seating – If your bedroom is large try adding in a bench at the edge of the bed or by the window for a window seat. Old coffee tables or a small garden bench can be used to make your own bench – just add some paint, cushion and the bench is ready.
There are only 53 days left until Christmas! And Hannukah starts even before that! Here are some lovely upcycled Etsy pieces for the home.
The garden faucet wine stopper from All Things Reconsidered is less than 15 bucks ($14.99 to be exact).
Howzabout a wall clock for that cyclist in your life? $149.99 from Upcycled Bicycle. Say that 10 times fast.
Swimming Deep created this starburst mirror out of recycled magazines. $25.
Chic Retro makes pillows out of old sweatshirts. You can send her your favorite old shirt and voila…a pillow! $19.99
Sukkot begins tonight. For those of us unfamiliar with this Jewish holiday, it just means that alternate side parking rules are suspended this Thursday and Friday (Woot!). Sukkot is the shed holiday. Yeah, NOW you know what I’m talking about!
According to Rabbinical code, the sukkah (shed) cannot be located under trees, Stars must be visible from the roof, which must be made of material that is cut from the earth. For a better explanation, please visit the Babak Bryan website. They are the guys who created the Fractured Bubble sukkah above. The bubble is not really made from recycled materials, but rather invasive species that were picked from local wetlands. The design won People’s Choice in 2010′s Sukkah City and I love it too much not to include it.
Each image links to more info on that particular sukkah.
Past Sukkah post.
Yesterday we covered some plastic DIY projects you can do around the house. Today it’s wood! Inspirations from the Solar Decathlon.
Isn’t that inscription on the deck a lovely idea? It can be done on decks, siding or just about any old piece of wood you have around your house.
There are a couple of ways to go about the writing. You can burn it in. Remember those wood burning instruments we all had as kids? (If you’re over the age of say, 35?) Well, that technique is called pyrography. Thing is…do you really want to go out and buy that tool now? Perhaps you have a Dremel or router around the house. If so, then you can carve the letters out then stain them any color you want.
First you’ll want to line it up properly with a straight edge. Tape a stencil down and trace the outline. No, you don’t want to leave the plastic stencil there to be burnt or cut. The rest of it ain’t rocket science. You can figure it out.
Check out that cool shower base. You know what? I’m not even telling you to make it yourself. You can probably buy shit like that at Ikea and plop it right down. I just like it, is all.
I’m not quite sure if this is recycled shipping pallets or a piece made from scratch. Either way, it gave me the idea to do it with shipping pallets. A while back, I thought I’d be really cool and build a bunch of stuff made from the reclaimed wood of pallets. Well, it was crazy trying to take all the slats apart. So why bother? Just cut them down and build stuff out of them that way.
I’m feeling the love towards the bark! Ok, so bark siding is pretty pricey to purchase if you can’t find a tree that it’s coming off of. But I’m not talking about residing your whole home with it. Perhaps a 4×4 framed square to use as a cork board? Or as a backsplash in the your kitchen? An entire wall behind the bathroom sink? A line of bark shingles instead of chair railing? The possibilities are endless.
We usually try to stick to local reclaimed wood resources but new advertiser Reclaimed Lumber (see link on the sidebar) has a warehouse in Pennsylvania. That’s local enough. Plus, they do ship nationwide.
The wide plank pine shown in the above photo is $5.95 per square foot. That’s not bad! The website says that shipping should cost less than $250.
One can get lost on the site. There’s all sorts of reclaimed flooring, including pine and oak from barns and wine barrels. But flooring is just the start. There’s paneling that’s not your grandma’s 1970′s wall paneling. Ceiling panels, reclaimed wood furniture, beams, frames and slabs. It’s the go-to source for reclaimed wood in any form.
You can buy and sell barns on the site. No sh*t! And old log cabins!
Kind of makes me wish I was restoring an old country home.
Better After is a blog that asks readers to send their before and after shots of furniture and renovations. There some ab fab pieces on there that make me miss my furniture upcycling days. The room redos are ta die for too! Most are not even full renovations, just some paint and good taste. Love it!
DIY Showoff similarly posts before and after shots sent in from readers. It’s, dare I say, more mainstream, less precious-crafty. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! The site was started by Roeshel who has been restoring her own 1927 farmhouse. She has frigawesome taste. I was salivating at her marble subway tile backsplash.
Shabby Blogs is another blog that relies on reader participation. Actually, it’s more than that. It’s like a prettier version of Houseblogs. No, it’s more than that. You can create your own blog with their design templates. All for free! And they’re quite purdy too.
DIY Insanity asks “Is it nuts to design, permit and build an addition to your house by yourself?”. I saw the header and thought “No biggie” but when I started reading the posts I realized this was a huge job they undertook. Like big cranes and shit. Yikes! I like the “Gardening with a Sawzall” post. Good idea!
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Love your wall of doors. I’m trying to get some ideas for a room that I want to spruce up. I’m using Simply Decorate as my online interior design service. They also have great ideas on their room decorating page. Even though I work for them, I can honestly say I am so glad I picked them to help me. Have you heard of them?
Comment by ariel — September 16, 2012 @ 2:03 pm
just discovered your site. I totally relate. I’m doing a house that I moved near New Orleans. Can you tell me how you joined the doors together, I love this look and have some cabinet doors that I would like to use this way, but I’m not sure how to deal with the seams, I’m coinsidering biscuits or dowels with glue. Any recommendations would be appreciated. Will continue to follow your efforts. Good luck
Comment by nopainter — September 18, 2012 @ 10:03 am
Nopainter,
I was just collecting ideas myself and haven’t actually built the wall yet. I’m thinking that the most difficult part will be planning it out so that the doors all look good together and that may or may not mean adding extra studs or supports to secure the doors to.
I kind of envision having thin molding covering the seams and maybe painting that molding a uniform color, as if to frame each door.
From your comment, it sounds like you want to join each door together. I was just going to secure it to the studs and get them as close as possible. But yes, if you want to join them, I guess biscuits or dowels are the way to go. I’m not skilled enough to make that look good though!
Comment by RH — September 19, 2012 @ 5:55 am