Home Accessories

The best things in life are free, especially when it comes to home accessories. Discarded stuff left in basements, attics, garages and in the neighbor's trash could be an awesome accessory, piece of furniture or art piece for you. Not to mention re-purposed materials are a good thing, think Green.

Take a look at some of the stuff that has been rescued and given a new life. This is a great way to acquire cheap home accessories.

By implementing these ideas you might rescue a great piece of old furniture from the landfill. That's what we did with a Hoosier cabinet, also a book cabinet and a rattan coffee table that was ready to be thrown in a bonfire.

The six foot green cabinet pictured was left in the basement of a late 1800's building. All it needed was a little soap and water. It's a great looking old piece and adds storage for the kitchen or any other room in the house.

This particular cabinet is made of solid white pine and could have easily been stripped to expose the natural wood but I painted the cabinet instead.

The wood square coffee table pictured was once a 30 inch high table that was left behind in a basement. The bottom of the legs were rotten so we cut them off to make a coffee table and a great home decor accessory.

The refinishing process for the coffee table was started by sanding to remove the old finish. Next I painted the table with a yellow ochre water based paint.

After the paint had dried I lightly sanded again to remove some of the paint to allow the natural wood to show through.

Next I painted the designs on all of the legs and all four sides of the table. Simple designs worked just fine for the look I was trying to capture. If you want a more complex design you can purchase stencils or free hand the design yourself.

The last step was to coat the entire table with an oak tinted polyurethane.

Note, finishing with a paint wash or tinted polyurethane dulls the brightness of a color or colors and blends the whole piece together.

Here's a cool old metal stool we found in a neighbor's trash one night. I decided to bring it back to life with color for the kids playroom.

I started off by sanding the stool to get the old green finish and as much rust off as I could. Next I put a coat of Rustoleum primer on the stool to help prevent the rust from bleeding through the paint.

Next I painted the stool's back, seat and legs with solid bright colors. Then I got creative and painted a big flower on the seat with a bumble bee in the middle of the flower.

The project was completed by applying two coats of clear polyurethane to the entire stool.

Meet Bashful the rocking horse. Bashful was rescued from the trash on one of Greg's dumpster diving adventures. His paint was peeling but he had a lot of character and still had a lot of life left in him.

All that was needed to bring Bashful back to life was a little paint job on his seat and face and he was good to go.

Bashful adds simple decor to a kids bedroom or any other room in the house.

By using a little imagination your home accessories can come from old stuff you may have sitting in your attic or garage or possibly family heirlooms that are sitting around collecting dust. Give a family heirloom an up-dated look to fit into your decor.

Take a second look at that discarded "thang" you may have ready for the trash. It might have a new life by making a few simple changes. Re-purpose instead of buying new, re-cover old pillows, make colorful oil lamps with bottles from the recycle bin.

With a little help from a "miracle paint" I discovered, I created a mercury glass lamp from a $3 candle holder I found at the local Goodwill store. Don't be afraid to experiment, you may be surprised at the artist within you!

You can re-use and re-purposed a lot of different home accessories. I recently re-purposed four lamps and shades. It was easy and cost about $16 for all four lamps.

I love collecting old boxes and decorative trunks to use as storage, end tables, coffee tables, shelves, benches and a number of other creative uses. It's a great way to organize any room in your house. Upcycle vintage boxes to make side tables, just reverse the bottoms and add table legs.

Keep your eyes open when shopping flea markets or your favorite junk store for multi purpose home accessories.

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