One contest I couldn’t miss – the “3R’s (Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose)” Contest!
The Town of Kindersley invited people to share a photo of their favourite Repurpose proj- ect in this last while. We included the ideas of Recycle and Reuse in our project.
Our fence on one side of the house was wobbly, weathered and in need of TLC! The original fence was designed for marking out the border from the back lawn to the front driveway. A redesign was put together. The fence was shortened to allow for easier access between our garages. While the same fence post hole positions were reused, the height of the fence was designed to be varied, from shorter to taller.
The repurposing? 16 foot fence boards were encrusted with dirt, weathered and some- times moulded and crumbling. What could be done with these boards? Instead of hang- ing horizontally (lengthwise) on the fence, we changed their orientation to vertical (up and down), thus being able to salvage a good portion of each fence board.
In order to stain the boards (stain tends to soak into the wood and last longer than paint), we sanded down to the original grain. No small task but very rewarding.
Across the way and around town we also scrounged a few more fence boards, 2X4’s and fence posts. That was just plain fun, asking and receiving – free of charge (they were quite glad not to have to pay waste management fees to dispose of their old fence)!!
In the end, reorienting the boards and sanding off the old weathered “gunk” meant we only had a small portion of the fence that we needed to buy “new”. Our materials cost was amazingly low! The labour a bit higher – but that was done free of charge. Our fence, our sweat!
Now, if this doesn’t sound like Pinterest, I don’t know what does.
Sometimes what we need are examples of the Three R’s to decide to enter into our own projects. I saw some other projects on the Town of Kindersley’s Facebook site that looked interesting. Congratulations to all those who worked on the Three R’s!
To get just a bit philosophical.
The Three R’s are an extension of our ancestry and legacy around these parts. My upbring- ing was in a family whose farming roots were well exposed. My father talked of binder twine and barbed wire as though they were sacred “ x alls”. My mother could make all sorts of things out of the fruit of the land – even dandelion salad. Us kids were invited into their lives – we learned to imagine, and to take apart (and sometimes put back together).
Perhaps the Three R’s are not so much about saving money, or producing something new out of the old.
