Recently I went with a friend to pick up the items we had purchased from a local estate auction. This is something I have just started doing recently, and it is an upcycler’s dream!!! http://www.tommywagnerauctions.com/ One of the items my friend had purchased was a box of plumbing supplies. These were interesting, but I was intrigued by the box they came in. The gentleman who’s estate was being sold was an engineer and a very talented woodworker. He even made his own storage boxes from leftover wood. The box that the plumbing supplies were in had been made from cherry wood. It was only roughly finished, but I thought it was beautiful. After unloading the plumbing supplies my friend was kind enough to give it to me.
I set the box in my “workroom” (used to be a family room, but I have appropriated it for my needs now the kids are on their own) and looked at it for several weeks. And I looked and I looked. Then I thought about The Goddess of Handmade and how I was always troubled when I visited by the piles of plastic bags with random skeins of wool in them that surrounded “her” chair. How in the world could she find anything!
So I bought some legs at Lowes and some foam at Joanne’s, raided my stockpile for fabric, plywood, sandpaper, paint and polyurethane, got out my table saw, drill and staple gun and started playing. Here’s what I had a few days later:
And here it is put to work:
I am happy because I was able to exorcise my creative spirit for a while, and The Goddess of Handmade is happy because she now has her treasures in one place and can feast her eyes upon them for ocular nutrition whenever she pleases. The cost? The only thing I bought were the legs and the foam, and they totalled about $23.00. A successful upcycle and all is right with the world!
Next Time: How to turn a wooden box into a storage bench.
Teaser: The auction viewing was the day of The Engineer’s college graduation and I was still trying to find just the right graduation present for him. Here’s what I bought at the auction:
Stay tuned for the next incarnation of this gorgeous woodworkers’ bench!
Comments on: "Auction Junk Box to Knitter’s Bench" (3)
LOVE your blog! I want to go out and find cool stuff!
Thanks Miriam! Maybe we can go searching for treasures together some day. Do you know what day they do the big item trash pick-up in your area? We could go shopping before the trucks get there!
[...] visiting an estate auction with a friend, Liz from Zil’s Space was intrigued by a cherry wood box filled with plumbing supplies that her friend had purchased. The [...]