Reuse, Renew, Re-purpose

I love garage and estate sales; and unearthing a hidden treasure buried in an antique or thrift store makes my heart beat faster.  One Saturday when my friend's 80 year old mother came along, I told her if we buy one more thing we will have to strap your mom to the roof of the car.  On other occasions, I have felt the urge to jump out of the car while it was still moving to get to a really good garage sale.

I'm not into dumpster diving...yet, but I was tempted this week when I spied a really nice stack of aged wooden pallets "beside" the dumpster at a local Cracker Barrel restaurant.  My mind went into overdrive of what I could do with them.  Unfortunately, my husband didn't seem too keen on the idea, so I came home empty-handed.  Oh well, maybe next time.  Two of my favorite blogs are Funky Junk Interiors and Mamie Jane's .  They do some amazing things with cast offs.  In this economy, reuse, renew and re-purpose have become trendy pastimes, but to my parents and grandparents it as just called "survival".

Several years ago, twig chairs were all the rage.  The craft is called hobo or tramp art, and vintage ones sell for a ridiculous amount of money.  My father was deeply offended by the term, tramp art, since my grandfather fed them during the Great Depression by making and selling twig chairs.  My great-uncle, Grandpa's brother, made "what-not" shelves from cast off wood and thread spools and "whittled tiny animals from peach pits.  Everything had to serve more than one purpose.

When I was a little girl, my mother taught me how to iron.  I ironed sheets, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and believe it or not...my Daddy's boxer shorts.  We didn't own a clothes drier, so clothes were hung outside on a wire clothesline stretched tightly between two metal "T shaped" poles. 

Sheets dried in the sunshine smelled so fresh and clean, but they were stiff.  Before clothes were ironed, they were "dampened" with a water-filled soda bottle, probably Pepsi or Sun Drop Cola.  The soda bottle had an aluminum sprinkler top with a cork.  Mama dampened the clothes then wrapped them with a thin plastic dry-cleaning bag saved from my Daddy's work uniforms.  The damp clothes were then put in the refrigerator until they were ironed. 

Surely my Daddy was spoiled...I've never ironed a pair of my husband's boxer shorts!  In fact, the first criteria for clothing purchases at my house is...Wrinkle Free, No Ironing Necessary.  Since my husband and I have been purging, he brought an object to me last night and asked, "What do you want to do with this"?  Hmmm...it's been so long since I've seen one, I'm not sure what it is.... Oh, yeah, it's a tabletop ironing board...we could probably toss it out.  But wait...maybe I could use it for something else.


Copyright 2011 Charlotte Laney