salvaged balusters? spindle sticks!

My friend Laurie and I have been holding Craft Days (or The Longest Day of the Year, as my husband calls it) for years. We're always looking for new projects we can create and give as holiday presents. This year Laurie scored a ton of balusters (staircase spindles) for free at a garage sale.

We had no clue what to do with them. Thank goodness for Margo, whose website has an entire section on projects made from balusters. You gotta love that. We decided to try candlesticks, which were a huge hit at the Christmas dinner table. I was so proud of them, I nervously asked Liz at Sticks and Bricks if she would consider selling them in her shop, and amazingly, she said yes! Here they are in her shop:

I especially love that they are all different sizes and can work as pairs or groups. Nine would make a super-cool huge Menorah!

barn door + sewing machine bases = dining room table

Long before the word "upcycle" entered our lexicon, we've been repurposing (another fancy new word) recycled and salvaged materials to create projects that are both cool and completely practical. No toilet paper cozies for us. One of Jen's favorite projects is the dining room table that sits in her 1860s farmhouse in downtown Northampton. Her travels to one of her favorite salvage yards, Vermont Salvage in White River Junction, netted her a beat up barn door that was so old, the curve of the door closure was permanently carved into the wood. She flipped the seats down in her Honda Civic hatchback (best car ever), tossed the door in, and brought it home. Many, many hours of sanding and coating later, she had a tabletop, but no legs. Luckily, sewing machine bases are both plentiful and cheap in local antique stores, so after paying someone who was not afraid of power tools to affix the top to the bases, she had the most beautiful table she had ever seen.