Upcylced JUNK Shelving Unit

So you know we deal in junk, right? On occasion we find some really nice stuff that has a great value, but most of the time we buy junk that we think someone else will pay more for. So when we get a chance to find junk that we think has a greater value in our own home - SCORE!

About two months ago, I picked up a broken aluminum extension ladder. It was straight, but it was in pieces. Straight was important for my vision. I had an idea to build a shelving unit in our office. It was originally my office when we moved her many years back, but since Mrs. Smith started TheSmithHotel, it has become a joint office. Mrs. Smith doesn't actually sit in this office, but all of her "junk" (from the description above) and plenty of MY "junk" has taken over our lives in "the office". I wasn't sure how fast I was going to get this project finished, but I needed the second part of the shelving dream - some bleacher seats. You know - the old wooden seats that you watch football games from on Thursday and Friday nights?

So bleacher seats/boards aren't something you come across every day, right? So since I know some lumberjacks, or a more formal title of "Forester", I thought I would ask if I could find some scrap lumber that would work in the same manner. The first guy I asked at church said, "Well, I actually have some old bleacher seats from Shasta College." What are the odds?

Here is the ladder - I took off the rusty feet and power sprayed them. Got this from Moore's Green Goods.

Here is the lumber (bleacher seats) right before I painted them, but I did sweep them off.

Here they are painted - I used several different white and gray latex paints I had sitting around (mostly oops paints).

So after they were painted, I let them cure for several days before roughing them up a bit. I wanted them to be clean, but rough like they just came off the bleachers. These bleachers were changed out many years ago and have been sitting out in a field for some time now. Since they were coming in the house, they needed to be clean, and I wanted to make sure there were no termites to be dealt with.

I have an old wooden bed that we picked up for $5 that I plan on making a bench with. I was not going to use the rails, so I pulled the ends off and ended up using them as cross braces for the back of the shelf (so it wouldn't collapse under the weight of the wood).

Oh - I forgot to show you a before picture. Well why don't you head over to Mrs. Smith's blog (TheSmithHotel) to see the before and after. I am so excited that my vision came to completion. Thanks to Bob Hutcheson (who is not actually a lumberjack, but a Realtor) and Moore's Green Goods.  

Please let me know what you think, and come back to see what else we have up our sleeves.

Mr. Smith

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Funky Junk Interiors
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