Upcycled at StoneFlowerPottery

Our first upcycled object was an old fire extinguisher. It became a lamp because we had neither money nor lamp. That was in 1974 and we’ve reused, reworked, rebuilt, redesigned, repurposed hundreds of objects since then. 

Generally, I enter the house at the back door where a seasonal decoration made of aluminum cans hangs on the door. This month it’s still the Valentines hearth.

Inside is a door we carried home from someone’s trash pile. The glass was broken but it’s the door to our basement so Rick put a wooden backing in and I made a tile sunflower to fill the space.

The old wooden ironing board next to the door was perfectly reworked to be our house gnome. Someone did a marvelous job creating her. 

We hang hats & jackets on a coat rack made from part of our upright piano and some vintage hooks. Above the rack is a mirror from discarded vanity. We took off the side wings to make it fit. On the wall opposite is what Rick calls my mess and I call my international bell and brush collection.

 I think of them as being upcycled because they were all meant for work, not for décor. There’s a scrub brush that I bought in China. Nobody ever meant to that to be admired. It’s not a work of art but of utility still, it’s no Brillo pad and so interested me. In my mind is an image of the. Another brush from China is a huge calligraphy brush. It’s likely that was meant to be admired and maybe treasured.

 We’ve a wooden Thai sheep bell and some wonderful mental donkey bells from Peru. They are all handcrafted and marvelous, at least to me.

 There’s a small typewriter cleaning brush. Are you old enough to remember typewriters? The keys would get clogged with dust and goo from the ribbons (remember ribbons?) and they needed to be cleaned to make the images sharp again. I wonder if clogged keys made tracing typewriters difficult for police or if that ever mattered.