Thrifty Thursday: Reuse

As a second installment to my Thrifty Thursday, I thought I'd focus on ReUse of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" fame.

My quest is to figure out how I can get the most out of the things that I already have.  I figure there are two main parts of this.  First is Re-.  The second is Use.

The Re- part goes with taking things beyond their first use.  I figure there are lots of ways to extend the life of things that I already have.  Streeeetch the time between the next purchases by reinventing how things can fill needs (and wants).  Kids do a great job with this with jumbo appliance boxes.  Scrap-bookers do a great job with this with shoe boxes.  In recent years, grocers have been encouraging this with a "bring your own grocery bag" campaign, for which some people (ahem, hi mom!) have found the bags to be fun to collect and use for everyday purposes.  Then there's the water-bottle craze.  Other extensions of Re- include how I saw a friend take her husband's old shirt that was tatty around the edges and use the fabric and buttons to make a dress for her young girl.  I have taken scrap lumber from a friend's mini-barn project and turned it into a lawn-mower pavilion (shack, really).  People do it with egg cartons, apple boxes, the infamous Xerox paper boxes.

Repairs/alterations/repurposing are a big contributer to Re- also.  (There are lots of websites devoted to repurposing, too.)  For example, Jen really loves cardigans.  Last week Jen made a cardigan out of a shirt that she'd rather wear as a layering piece.  I patched up a half-dozen hand-me-down jeans (worn out knees!) for Ian to wear in the next year or two.   I inherited a camp kitchen which would be great for a week-long trip with a camp-trailer.  Jen and I repurposed it as a toy chest.  Years ago, Shirley gave me a luggage table sold from a motel, which we have used as a coffee table, then modified into a changing table, then built into a toolbench.  Looking at the photograph, I also notice that I have an old twin headboard/bookshelf as my workbench hutch, and a couple of wire racks that I picked up off the side of the road.  That's one of the nice things about garbage day 'round these parts.

My hodge-podge workbench during its early life before I cluttered it.

 Now for Use.  Simple enough.  If you own something, might as well make sure it's getting used.  Jen has been teaching me this principle.  If we don't use it, then why do we have it?  We should instead give it or sell it to someone who will use it!  (Caveat for keepsakes.  But even still, I need to learn how to be more discerning about what is really a keepsake!)  Two years for normal things.  An appropriate length for others (toys/baby clothes/food storage/tools/supplies have their appropriate shelf-life).

So what I want to hear about is what repurposed things you use in your home on a regular basis.  Thoughts?