Old Mess With New Life

A few weeks ago, i decided to take up a new project, using old junk and trash from around my yard and house, and rebuilding it into useful, appealing items. So, as my first step in the project, i found in our yard an old couch, which had been (quite unfortunately) ruined by cats. Normally, we would have to wait for our local big trash pickup day to get rid of something so large. But, as our big trash pickup is in January, that didn't strike me as practical. Instead, i decided to dismantle it and re-purpose it. I started by removing all of the fabric i could, and threw it away. Underneath all of the gross fabric, there was a great deal of really nice wood, a lot of which was made up of curved boards. The biggest trick of disassembling the couch was figuring out where it had been glued together or stapled, or sometimes screwed together. Identifying the fasteners, and then removing them was kindof a pain, and i definitely broke a bit more of the wood than i meant to, but in the end, i pulled a bunch of boards out of it. Then i just had to decide what to do with them. Ideally, i would have created the whole thing only out of boards i had scavenged from the couch, but that proved impractical. But, inspired by the curved boards from the couch, and supplemented by a few broken half-barrels i found in the orchard, i got to business, and built a pretty rustic arbor.

Which, if I do say so, worked out pretty well. Add in an old bench, and a large bush, and in no time, you've got a cozy little spot to have some iced tea and talk about the good old days, before the kids started listening to that Rock and Roll music, or their Hip and Hop.

The Curved top is made out of couch pieces, and so are the black curved frames at the bottom. two long boards running up the back round off the couch parts. the weird (rustic) latticing on the side is made up of oak slats from half-barrels, the type used to plant small trees. The bench was just something i had floating around. In the background, you can see Gus and Sasha making a big fat hole in the ground, which of course i love. SO, what do you think? A successful conversion of junk to treasure? any suggestions for projects you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments! And thanks for reading!