We search our local Craigslist all the time looking for free anything. Low cost is great, but free is a bigger bargain. We happened to find a person who is remodeling his house and advertised a small trailer full of wood he pulled from his house. He advertised it as free and said if no one wanted it, it was going to the junk. We saved all this nice wood from going to the local landfill. Steve, my husband, loves to make furniture and I love the furniture. For me, old wood is wonderful because I'm partial to rustic furniture. So from these piles, comes furniture for our house, furniture he makes me for a song.
You might say: "I can't make furniture, never done it before." Steve has never made much furniture either, before now. Since I adore rustic furniture, the older wood works perfectly for making my rustic cabinets and recently, two dry sinks. All painted with the flat, country colors.
I used to keep my spices in one cupboard. Every time I cooked, I had to drag all the spices out, place them on the counter just to find a few I needed for that recipe. We searched stores and couldn't find a decent sized spice rack to hold all our bottles. (Spice racks have fallen out of favor?) We love to cook at home, from scratch. This way we control what goes into our food, like no added salt or sugars, so spices are essential to make the food taste good. Steve made this rack from scrap wood and we happened to have some stencils we bought a long time ago. He painted the rack in a lovely country color, added the word 'Spices' to it and used a stencil on each side. I love it, now I can see the bottles without having to drag them from the cupboard and put them all back.
We also have two cats, who, BTW, like to get into the trash can in the kitchen, if possible. I needed a trash can with a lid. I looked at out local second hand shops and the cute ones they offered cost $20 and up, mostly and up. Steve measured our trash can and put together an attractive box for the trash can in our kitchen. Now I have a nice looking place for our trash. We bought an advertisement at Goodwill for 99 cents, that says: " Pride Seed Co." For a long time I didn't know what I might do with that advertisement. Steve glued it to the top of the trash can holder and now the holder looks like an old fashioned seed crate. Very clever. I've gotten many compliments on this box.
Just because you want nice things for your home doesn't mean you have to spend a fortune. Look around, re purpose, paint, spend less and you can imagine a ladder, scrap wood or an old piece of furniture painted to become whatever your imagination says it can be.
