I am not above scoping out discarded items on the side of the road. To me, that’s part of the frugal lifestyle. People throw out the most amazing things some times. You just never know what you might stumble across, and often times, some of these cast-offs can become a new treasure with a little work and bit of vision.

This happened to me recently when I was out walking with my kids. We walked right past a house that had a heap of ‘junk’ out by the curb. Well, this old vegetable cabinet caught my eye and I knew immediately, that I had to have it. We scurried home from our walk and I tossed everyone into the van and we headed back around the corner. The woman who had tossed the stuff, was outside and when I asked her if she minded if I took the item, she seemed overjoyed. She even tried to convince me the items were worth taking, which I found humorous since they were garbage to her anyway. But, I thanked her and loaded up two items, one of which I will show you here. (The other item is still in the works).

Vegitable cabinet before pic.

This old vegetable cabinet was in fairly good shape, despite being a bit dirty. Dirt should rarely be a deterrent from choosing to remake something that you find in the trash. Most things can be cleaned well enough to be covered over with spray paint. That was the case with this.

First I painted it black. I thought it looked sleek and cool. I thought I might use it in the dining room to hold wine glasses and wine. I even screwed a champagne cork onto a screw for the door knob (that was either very clever, or I had sniffed way too many fumes while spray painting, I’ll let you decide).

Black cabinet update

But, after looking at it for 24 hours and considering all of the possible uses for it, I decided to paint it yet again. This time, I chose a celery green spray paint was suddenly inspired by the new hue. Oh my word, it was suddenly screaming, “shabby chic” to me and ideas just started bubbling up! I wanted to sing, I wanted to dance, I was so excited at the new found potential this ‘trash’ suddenly had!

You see, I had a baby girl 8 months ago, and after 2 boys, I have been really wallowing in all things girly and frilly. My baby needs stuff for her room, and I have virtually no budget for that. I realized what a perfect cabinet this could be for storing her dolls. I decided that the top panel needed to go, and that sheer fabric (that I already had on hand- bought as a remnant for a couple of bucks) would help to transform this cabinet even more. I simply stapled the fabric to the inside of the door, creating pleats as I went and then hot glued a black ribbon (because that’s what I had on hand) to cover over my staple job.

Inside of Cabinet

You can see the ribbon is crooked, because, well, let me be honest, I am an impatient crafter. I get so itchy to see the finished results that sometimes, I don’t take the time to do it perfectly. Don’t be like me. Take your time, okay? Anyway. I purchased a glass looking door knob and voila!

Glass knob

A beautiful antique looking cabinet for my baby girls room. It took me all of an afternoon to do, and all told cost me about $10.00 for spray paint and the knob. Spray paint is seriously the most amazing thing.

Seriously. I also hope you will take a moment to consider another color of spray paint other than black. You can see from these pictures, the black was fine, and it could have worked, but the green?! Ohhh, that celery green just fits! . I hope this inspires you to take a second look at other people’s trash, and think a minute about what you can do with some of that stuff floating around out there that seems outdated and tacky. Think of it as recycling- your contribution to saving the planet. Be blessed and may you find some ‘treasures’ of your own on the side of the road!

Updated Cabinet

I want to be clear that I am not advocating snooping through people’s garbage to find things to remake. But stuff set on the curb is often worth a glance or two, and I also never remove anything without asking the owner’s permission. It is assumed that a pile by the side of the road is garbage, but I think it’s best to at least ask first.

Photo Sources: All photos in this post were taken by me.