Back in the saddle, scrounging the sidewalks and ending up with ridiculously large things to carry

Life's twists and turns mean that sometimes I am away from the blog for one reason or another.  The past year has seen a few locational changes, and continuous lessons in 'this is what you have, make it work somehow.'  No complaints about that here, such challenges go along quite well with the freestyle ethos. Waste not, want not, appreciate the abundance around you.
Practice gratitude, and as always - see the potential.

It's also ok to mutter under your breath about the weight of that potential when you decide to pick up this shelf and start carrying it.

It sounded like a good plan, just carry it down a block or two until you reach a busy street. Even though it's evening surely a cab will go by.....
Yes, they went by, and didn't stop. Or they didn't see me waving. Or they didn't want to pickup a woman with a shelf on a random Tuesday night.
Who knows. I do know that I made it to the subway, yay for elevators!

I knew right away I was going to paint this shelf, to cover a little repair and to match the rest of my apartment. I used Benjamin Moore Decorator's White in a pearl finish.
 Why pearl?
Because the hardware store was out of the glossier paint in the right size and base, and I didn't want to wait for a restock.

I dutifully, and reluctantly as always, sanded down the piece to rough up the finish.  There are no photos of that step. I dislike sanding.

After the first coat of paint it was clear I would need a second. It was also clear that I wish I had a little roller, but they didn't have any good ones at the store, so again, I made do with a brush.

Here's the finished product, styled with some odds and ends. The floor lamp behind the shelf is also a freestyle find from ages ago.

Eventually this painted shelf will get filled with books, because really, if I only wanted a place for a globe and some knickknacks would I even need a shelf in the first place? 

Happy freestyling and sidewalk finding!

Dumpster Dock Loot: Large metal shelving unit

Sometimes it is hard to be a minimalist.  It's not so much that we want to acquire, or seek to acquire, but rather that the realities of salvaging, reusing, and creating require tools and inputs to be stored somewhere, on something, if there is to be any semblance of order.  If all your hobbies can be contained inside your head or within the confines of a laptop it's easy to maintain a spaceship-sleek living space. Good for you.  

We live in a world of the tangible and tactile; we need shelves.

Black metal shelf: waiting for a new home,
and would you like some refreshments?

Lucky for us this appears to be a busy move-out time in our large apartment complex.  Moving is a chore, and so I EXTRA applaud all of those people who take the extra time during the cleaning/packing chaos to set aside things that are clearly reusable and place them in the loading dock area so that others can reuse them.  You are good people, I hope your moves go smoothly. Also we appreciate your free stuff, like this lightweight black metal shelving unit.  

New home

The metal shelf now gives a structured home for art supplies, books, and those interesting odds and ends.

As an added bonus, below is a closeup of the collection of artistically arranged rusty iron bits.  

See the potential.

Happy freestyling, collecting, and displaying!

Wooden Side Table - evolution in slow motion

Early on in this apartment adventure we had very very little furniture.  We still don't have much, but at one point in the spring I felt the urge to grab this side table from the loading dock.

Despite the scratched top...

Former owners not too keen on preserving my finish.....

Despite the fact that it had a file drawer that was not useful for a living room.....

It was a free side table!

I'm ok, you're ok

So as a side table it served for many a month.  It did a perfectly blandly fine job of side tabling, but really wasn't achieving its full potential. I just wasn't sure what to do, then creativity struck after a good night's sleep. The solution, turn the drawer front into a shelf!

A little dis-assembly time (which is really one of my favorite parts)...

Drawer front removed from drawer frame, along with roller fixtures.

...followed by re-use of the components.  The drawer front that was going to serve as the new shelf wasn't the ideal length, just a smidge too short. I screwed a piece of wood (originally attached to the drawer front) to the base in the back to extend the shelf support. Shout out for pre-drilled holes!

Full disclosure, as much as I tried, the wood screw on the right side just wouldn't go in far enough to be flush with the surface. Sigh. So I put a little bit of tape over it to reduce the risk of unpleasant surprises.  If you have a better idea, or a more powerful drill, I'll all ears.

With a little bit of casual measuring, reuse of existing components, time with a power drill & hammer, and quite a bit of fun, I got a new shelf for our living room magazines.

Ready to display all of the reading materials!

Happy Freestyling!

A tall drink of freestyle (furniture)

(An old freestyle adventure from the sidewalks of Cambridge that was never posted, until now!)

While heading out to the store one night with a friend, I spotted a tall narrow shelf lying in a pool of streetlight on the far sidewalk.  Full stop! Immediate inspection required!  Groceries had to wait while we brought this shelf into the apartment and laid in on the floor in the living room.  Moving furniture at night always feels a leeeetle bit (scandalous, secretive, surreptitious, sketchy??), but also somehow more victorious.

I was initially excited at the prospect of using this shelf for shoes, going so far as to put it in the closet. I measured the space, but not my feet. Turns out, my shoes were too big to lay flat on the shelves, they fall out! Boo.  So the shelf had to come out of the closet. Then it had to wait around a while, twiddling its thumbs, while I considered how to use it.  A narrow shallow bookshelf? Display space for tchotchkes? I suspect in its former life this shelf displayed CDs, or movies.  

The tall shelf sat around our place, empty, for a while, until one night we were visiting friends and I spied the SAME SHELF but in a different finish.  Quelle coincidence!  It was also a freestyle find, perhaps no one in Cambridge needs to store CDs anymore.  They had arranged their shelf to charming effect with books, mementos, and a plant.

Looking good!

 I asked if they would be interested in a second, free, one to use as they saw fit.  (Thinking to myself, Please, take it off my hands, we don’t actually have the space) After some hemming and hawing, they agreed to accept the shelf when Friend offered to deliver it to their front door.  *Sigh of relief*  Adios to the tall shelf, may you serve a purpose for someone else.
Happy freestyling.

The freestyle not taken - remembering a rattan étagère

Contrary to my first impulse I do NOT pick up everything cool that I find on the street. Now that it is deepest winter, and the heady days around moving season have long past, the street furniture pickings are greatly reduced.  With all that non-existent extra time I would be happy to have a few projects waiting for me in my ground-floor heated workshop...which doesn't exist. Darn, that puts a crimp in my plan.  Finding big stuff at this time of year is harder because it is cold outside, and sometimes rainy, or snowy, or all three at once...not exactly conducive to leisurely strolls with no destination in mind. But I can share with you, dear reader, a few things that I spotted on the sidewalk back in the day and didn't grab - the freestyle not taken.

Our first exhibit, the rattan étagère, a.k.a the rattan shelving unit.

  

How's that for a bad picture?  Old phone, nighttime, no flash, only streetlights for illumination. Thank goodness for the help of Picasa, but it can only do much. Still, you can sort of get the picture, I hope.  The shelf was laying on its side, the top was curved like a roman arch, and the 5 shelves seemed to be intact and attached.  Even the caning looked ok.  If I had been in need of shelving I so would have taken this.  Rattan (or whatever this was made of) may not scream 'New England,' but it does make sense if you have to move a lot.

Perhaps in an earlier life stage the shelf looked like this picture (pulled from the web).

via auction website

I could have sanded and painted the shelves and backing, the options for rattan and wicker extend far beyond white or black.  (Plus, if it is free one doesn't feel quite so worried about small mistakes or imperfections in the paint job...)  Some colorful painted wicker inspiration pulled from the the interwebs:

Orange

via Etsy

Grey and natural

via

Pink

via Etsy

Periwinkle

via Etsy

Happy freestyling, and remember - if you have to let it go, at least take a picture and be ready with ideas for the next time.