Objects to Design Your Home – My friend is an interior decorator who does a lot of staging and re-design work. She’s great at it. What I have always admired about the aesthetic she brings to these projects is that she can take an everyday object, turn it on its head and use it in a different way in the spaces that she creates. It gives her rooms interest and makes them unique. It’s a great, enviable skill in my book; I really wish I had this ability, but I guess I don’t see the interior design world like she does. A lot of us don’t. We are unable to see these objects as the design opportunities they are. So today I thought I’d share a few of these unexpected uses for everyday objects. Maybe you’d like to try some of them in your home? So here we go…
“There are some people who see a great deal and some who see very little in the same things.”
Thomas Henry Huxley
1. Turn a Drawer Into a Tray or Container For Collectibles
Objects to Design Your Home – Wait… don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. And just because that old chest or bureau has water rings on top or has outlived its useful life, it doesn’t mean you have to dispose of the whole of it. Consider, at least, saving some of the drawers; they come in handy to house collections when mounted on a wall or to act as a tray for a whole variety of things.
2. Turn a Ladder Into a Shelf or Blanket Rack
Objects to Design Your Home – That funky wooden ladder hanging out in your garage can easily be brought inside to display some vintage quilts in the family room or house some extra blankets in the guest space. On the patio or nestled into a corner of almost any room, a vintage wooden ladder makes a great display space for décor and plants, even the ones with a few paint splatters, as that just makes them a little more interesting.
3. Turn a Mirror Into a Centerpiece or Tray
Mirror, mirror on the wall? How about on the table or dresser top instead? An old mirror makes a great tray for jewelry or cocktail glasses; it also makes a great anchor for a centerpiece on your dining table. Use spay paint to make it coordinate with your décor or get out the sandpaper and give it an even-more-vintage feel.
4. Turn a Chair Into a Plant Stand or Table
Have an old chair hanging around? Consider it fair game to use as a table instead. With a smaller footprint than most end tables, it will fit nicely into small spots. It can also double as a plant stand, indoors or outside.
5. Turn Crates Into a Bookcase or a Coffee Table
Old crates are not just for the realm of college boys looking to decorate their dorm rooms – oh no. Wooden crates, especially ones with interesting patina or quaint advertising, make great coffee tables and bookcases. Sturdier when anchored together, these crates afford plenty of storage opportunity as well as design interest.
6. Turn a Rug Into Art or An Ottoman
Handmade rugs are truly works of art, so why not treat them as such? Smaller rugs can be hung on the wall, using a variety of methods. Larger rugs that are too big to hang or have excessive wear spots can be salvaged in part by using them much as you would a fabric remnant – cover a chair or ottoman with them or make them into pillows.
A Final Thought…
There are so many ways to use so many objects when you stop and think of it. Much like my blog last week: Unexpected Uses For Your Furniture: Wow! I Didn’t Know You Could Do That? where we talked about using furniture pieces differently than they are intended, the ideas here are just the tip of the iceberg. And if you are using these items in new and different ways, your interiors become more interesting and your carbon footprint becomes smaller. I’d call that a win-win!
And Now For Some Music Before We Go…
“Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty. Then, and then only, does it comes into existence.”
Oscar Wilde
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