Evaluate, Eliminate and Integrate: A Home Office

When the kids lived at home, this L-shaped desk area served its purpose. It was the perfect place for them to do homework and play computer games. But with them gone it became the catch-all corner. In this photo it is serving as a sorting area for an upcoming yard sale.

The yard sale prompted the owner to evaluate how the space was used. She eliminated the left desk and integrated the things she wanted to keep. With the desk removed - and when the neatly stacked items awaiting the yard sale are gone - this room will have a lot more floor space, perfect for when the adult kids come to visit.

Scarf Pocket

My friend Terry is a busy woman, running from here to there, carrying things. She needs an extra set of hands. So she had a great idea.

She took this scarf that she always wears...

... folded it in half, stitched a few inches up the sides and created two extra pockets.

Now when her hands are full she always has a spot for her shades and, more importantly, her coffee cup.

Closet Access

The bedroom closet in this new house was smallish and had terrible access. The sliding door blocked half of the very small space and it was frustrating trying to see what was in there.

The owners had four curtain panels on the French doors.

Eventually they decided remove the restrictive, sliding closet doors and repurpose two of the French door panels into new closet "doors."

Now, for the cost of a curtain rod, they have what appears to be matching windows...

 ...and total access to the closet contents.

rePURPOSING Things: Water Color Box

The art teacher that showed her students this new use for the boxes that housed their used up water colors is educating kids about more than art. Hopefully they will learn to look at alternatives to tossing.

Cleaning Out the Cleaning Tools

How many vacuums does one family need? The FIVE that this family had all had different functions. One was for quick clean ups, one for the stairs, one for the rugs, one for the car, one was inherited.

We tossed them all and replaced FIVE with ONE whose features easily worked on quick clean ups, stairs, rugs, car, etc. Reclaimed were storage space and time dealing with them all. Not to mention room in the appliance instruction file!

What do you have multiple versions of that you can let go?

rePURPOSING Things: T-shirts

This is not a new idea but this is a new example of rePurposing logo t-shirts into a quilt.

This collection of t-shirts commemorates 12 plays produced annually by a summer theater company. The director wore them for the duration of the run and held on to them for sentimental reasons.

As he was downsizing he came across their storage box. Assembling them rag quilt style with fleece as the batting has turned them into a cozy throw full of happy memories. Plus the attractive, useful throw takes up less space than the ugly, bulky box.

rePURPOSING THINGS: Broken Skateboards

On a nighttime walk this bench caught my eye.

Seeing skaters break their boards at a skatepark the artist got the idea to repurpose them into this colorful and comfortable bench.

During the day the bench lives in front of the Davis Barber Shop, 209 G Street, Davis, California  d strett, Davis California  f you want to try it for yourself