UPDATE 7/5/2021: Now for sale in my etsy store.
So, here’s another project that’s been kicking around a while waiting to be finished. Not that it wasn’t on me because I’m slow — which I kind of am, given the whole day job thing. No, it’s because I finally just gave in and finished them.
Let me explain.
I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but where I live we have quarterly junk pick up days. That is, once a quarter during the year there is a day you can put your useless old crap on the curb and it disappears. If the useless crap is full of metal, junkers take it and sell it for scrap. If it’s a broken couch, it gets picked up by the city and sent to the landfill.
But for lots of items in between those two things are items for people like me. Who sees that junk and thinks they could do something with it. For a while I was collecting broken chairs and fixing them, which is why I now have a bunch of individual chairs I fixed which had no mates. Here’s one I picked up from a neighbor and spent an inordinate amount of time stripping, restraining, and refinishing.
Before the chairs I was picking up coffee-tables — specifically oak coffee tables that were thrown out. These were the kind with a glass panel in it and the glass panel was missing, so of course it was junk. Here’s one of them waiting for my attention.
Anyway, with another of these coffee tables I made some footstools. Took it apart and sanded it and glued up the legs into thicker blanks that I cut new legs from. Cut down the rails to form other rails, and after gluing up some old pallet wood for the bottom panels, I had two footstools. One is painted black, the other is simply clear coated. (You can see them above with my son’s cat).
Anyway, the reason these are mostly-reclaimed has to do with the availability of the scrap/reclaimed wood for the top panels. One of them has a lid made from a piece of plywood I salvaged from another chair. That was basically completed in the late-fall. Well, I waited around all winter to try and find a piece of plywood for the top panel of the other but it never fails that if you’re looking for something, you won’t find it. In the end, I used a scrap piece of plywood from another project and just finished it.
Of course, to be fair these were never truly going to be all rescued wood and materials — the foam for the padding and the material would be bought. Which it was, though the material was marked down, so it’s not like I paid full freight for that.
Here’s the thing: I don’t need a foot stool — not one or two. I already have one I made from walnut — it’s above if you care. Which means you can buy these on etsy. (The walnut variety is not for sale)
Bear in mind — while the wood was salvaged, there is actual money in these, which is why they are not free.
Buy your’s now!
Joe Made A Thing 