books to inspire

Last night Travis and I ran out to the grocery store and then headed over to Hastings to return a movie.  (If you haven't seen "How to Train your Dragon", I'd recommend it.  It's adorable.)  Anyways, while at Hastings, I browsed around the used book racks a bit while Travis wandered the movie and video game sections.   I found two books that were right up my alley.  "Decorating Junk Market Style" and "Junk Beautiful".  The authors of these books take all kinds of found items from salvage yards, thrift stores (etc.) and reinvent them into useful (and beautiful) furniture pieces and accessories.  Talk about taking boring, ordinary items and turning them into something that is incredibly unique and treasured. 

authors Sue Whitney & Ki Nassauer

While I've only flipped through these books briefly (I plan on taking them to the hospital with me to distract me between contractions) I've already come across a few favorite ideas.

mailbox shoe rack / entry table

hand drill coatrack

wire laundry basket side table

I love the way these books turn my mind inside out and get me thinking about how I can turn plain old objects into something original.  What's even better is that most of the ideas in these books have step-by-step instructions and material and tool lists.  The only problem is that if any of these projects tickle my fancy ("if"...yea right...more like "since so many of these projects tickle my fancy"...), I have to keep my fingers crossed that I can find the same (or at least similar) ordinary objects to repurpose.  Hmm...where to begin...