FROM TRASH TO TREASURE

 DON'T THROW IT, REPURPOSE IT

For decades we've been doing our version of taking befores and making them into afters.  We've scavenged 1930's barkcloth and vintage French ticking for pennies at flea markets way before Martha put them in her magazine.  We are notoriously unscrupulous when it comes to curbside finds and bargain furniture.  With an eye to seeing beyond what it is to what it could be we were not at all phased by our daughter's mortification when as a little girl we would pull the car to the curb to pick up a piece of discarded furniture.

It was the sense that her parents were going through someone's garbage she objected to. Although, once the piece was back and we had nursed it into good health her mortification eventually disappeared.  After about twenty years of her having observed our transformations she has finally come around and under our tutelage has become a first rate scavenger herself.

Nothing is a better example of her trash to treasure education than the living quarters she has created for herself.  Her style might not be ours; her sensibility is more a reflection of her generation. It's hip and retro and progressive all at once. It reflects a strong woman secure in herself with a bold bohemian approach.

Our point of view is a bit tamer.  Our new kitchen renovation is an amalgam of Fiestaware, depression glass and DYI stools made from inexpensive big box store stools topped with cushion seats upholstered with vintage French ticking and fire engine red leather. 

The most important part of the art of repurposing is imagination.  This is something either you have or you don't. We believe we have it and that is why clients hire us.  It is why Rick can find a jar of buttons and know that if you string them together skillfully and artistically you can make a magical garland. 

It is how we can see a pair of metal bins and know that they will make perfect planters to anchor the corners of our deck once filled with Japanese maples and cascading vines.

Of all the trash we've picked up and transformed I do have a favorite.  It happened in a lucky moment when we were in the process of the first renovation of the house my parents had built and we bought from their estate.  It was in the summer two days before junk day.  We were still exploring the neighborhood.  The area around my parents house had expanded between the time when I had grown up in that house and decades later when we moved back to Madison, bought the house and began turning it into our own home.  On my way to the grocery store I decided to take a shortcut trough an area I hadn't been through before. Growing up this area had been pastures and cornfields.. As I turned down one of those uncharted streets now lined with thirty-year-old ranch houses and split-levels I spotted something that I knew was too good to pass up.

The remains of a Hollywood Regency style sofa missing its seat cushion and upholstered in a dreadful green crushed velvet with a fringed bottom.  It had been pulled out to the curb.  It was way too large to fit into or on top of our car. I was also a little skeptical about running off with it without knowing that indeed it was being cast away or just resting on the curb before being moved back into the house. I had to calculate whether I was going to be a thief or savior. I also had to figure out a plan of how I was going to abscond with my treasure. My youngest sister had a little pickup so I called her and asked if she could be my getaway driver.  She agreed.  We met up and were off to the rescue.

I was a bit worried that maybe we had let too much time elapse giving someone else the opportunity to cart off the sofa but when we rounded the corner the sofa was still  there. I went up to the front door to ask about the sofa. They said,, "If you want that thing take it, it's yours", so we did.  Now I had to see if Rick could see my vision as well.  He did.  We figured out fabrics and design upgrades complete with handmade accent pots Rick fashioned from knitting yarn, We had it fumigated and reupholstered.  Now it sits in our living room looking marvelous.

Never underestimate the restorative ability of your imagination.  Think beyond an old chair and a bunch of feed sacks. You never know what you might come up with.

THE GALLERY

Satiric Dancer, 1926, Andre Kertesz, photographer

Represented by Gitteman Gallery, NYC