March 2nd was National Old Stuff Day. The day can be celebrated with new experiences or giving new life to something old. From a One Shade Greener perspective, the concept of giving new life to something old is often called upcycling.
Upcycling can take one product and turn it into something completely new.
Another angle is to take something old and freshen it up by cleaning, fixing, and/or painting.
Sometimes you get the chance to do both – freshen it and turn it into something new.
I had the chance to do both last week.
My Story
Last week, I noticed my neighbor was throwing away a large mirror with a graphically interesting wooden frame.
I kept looking at it and debated what I could do with it.
Finally, I decided to take it and if my upcycling didn’t work, I could just put it in the trash next week.
The changes I made were straightforward:
- Removed the mirror and cardboard backing
- Pulled out all the little nails that had been holding the mirror in place.
- Painted the frame white using paint I already had around the house.
The steps are shown below.
While I was working on this, I decided to do some refresh to the lamp in the room that had seen WAY better days. The metal was getting rusty and the lampshade was stained.
The steps of this project were equally straightforward
- Sanded down the rusty areas with sandpaper in the house.
- Painted the metal areas with silver spray paint I have from a project a year or two ago.
- Painted the lampshade with the white paint I used for the frame. I’ve never painted a lampshade, but figured if it didn’t work, I would just find another shade.
Once the paint was dry, I hung the frame up around the original photo that was in the bedroom and put the lamp back on the nightstand. Voila, a fun project and a great new look for $0!
I would like to eventually replace the photo with one that is formatted as a portrait. That would allow the new outer frame to spread wider across the bed frame. However, in the meantime, I think it looks just great as is.
Here’s the before and after:
Your Turn
What is sitting in your basement or your neighbor’s castaways that you could reimagine into something new?