A New Credenza Made From Recycled Parts

Aaron recently remodeled his studio.

He's still putting in the finishing touches , and then I'll show you the before and after.

But one of the things I can show you now is the piece of furniture he built for the studio.

He needed a shelf of some sort--a credenza--for the space.

So he built one.

It is made entirely of pieces he had lying around in the garage.

He started with the legs.

Aaron has an ever growing collection of table legs.

If he sees a great pair of legs, he stops for them.

I guess he's a leg guy.

He's taken tables from the side of the road, or from a garage sale just for the legs.

He discards the table top and hangs onto the legs for future use.

These legs were from a bunch of art tables that were being tossed by Long Beach State.

They were covered in paint and pretty beat up and horrible looking.

Nothing a few coats of black spray paint can't fix, right?

The top shelf is a simple piece of birch that Aaron had left over from another project.
He varnished it with a coat of polyurethane.
Birch is such a pretty color that he didn't need to do anything else to it.
He did want some color though, so he painted the bottom shelf his favorite orange.
He also added a piece of wood to the back of the bottom shelf.
That's one of my favorite parts of this shelf.
That particular piece of wood came from a huge packing crate.
A friend's neighbor had something huge shipped from Italy.
It came in a big, wooden box.
Aaron saw all that wood and the possibilities.
He tore down the box and has used the wood for all sorts of things.
Sam is made out of a piece wood from that box.
And now, so is this credenza.
Every part of this piece of furniture is made from recycled parts.
The paint we already had, so he spent ZERO dollars on this.
Nice.

You can see the piece is pretty narrow.
He did not want to take up a lot of room in his studio.  It isn't a huge space.
So the foot print is small.
It fits quite nicely in our dining room.
Actually, it is just the kind of piece I have been looking for.

It would be a perfect place to display all our vintage dishes.

I can never find one small enough.  They are always so long.  And wide.
And made for very large dining rooms, I guess.
But this one, it fits just right.
Don't you think?

I'm not going to keep it--it's his piece.
It has however, provided me with the inspiration for the book shelves to be built in the office/schoolroom.
Now I have a vision and we can steer clear of the IKEA shelving unit I was thinking about.
Desperation can cause you to go there.
But this is so much prettier than any IKEA shelving unit.
I can't wait to tell Aaron about his newest project.
I'm sure he'll be really excited.


I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "girls, marry a man who can use tools."
I think my man is pretty awesome.
Just like his furniture.


Love from,
Greta