apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Other personal favourites from Wary Meyers' Tossed & Found: Unconventional Design from Cast-offs are the plastic planter hanging lights (two plastic planters bolted together to create a baroque lighting option) and the Le French Dresser, a cursive typographic dresser pull solution that is both unique and witty. Each project is described in easy to follow instructions with behind-the-scenes sketches and personal descriptions of the process by the couple, giving an inspiring template for those of us who love garage sales, flea markets and curbside finds. Forty-five DIY projects that look boutique ready await!

What some view as trash, Linda and John Meyers see as raw material. The wife-and-husband team—subscribers to the “reduce, reuse, recycle” ethos—have perfected a design strategy that will save you money, help the planet, and provide hours of DIY fun. The strategy? First, visit a yard sale, construction-site dumpster, or even your own attic. Select something that somebody (even you) thought had outlived its usefulness. Then, transform that castoff into a piece that’s interesting and usable.

In this witty book, they apply their ingenious approach to seating (a chair made from pool noodles), lighting (a lamp from discarded pastry bags), storage (an umbrella stand from industrial steel pipe), tables (a wall-mounted table from a rusty basketball hoop), and all manner of decorative objects (Astroturf pillows, a pickle-jar terrarium). These super-clever authors show you that with a little ingenuity and elbow grease, everything old becomes new again.

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