What are ways you reuse/re-purpose things in your home?

Question

What are ways you reuse/re-purpose things in your home?

Answer 1

I wash out Ziploc baggies to reuse...and I wash foil...my mother's been doing this for years...long before the hype...I don't have a dishwasher, so I'm careful as to which containers I'll wash and save...don't want to die from a bacterial infection....I throw away any that originally stored meat or creme products.

Answer 2

I use plastic bags from grocery stores as garbage bags for the small garbage cans in the house.  I re-use many different plastic packages for my own food usage-especailly to give away.  Cool whip containers for soup etc...

I use bread bags as sandwich bags, which my daughter has always hated but now that she is an adult does the same thing.

I compost...I use an ice cream pail under the sink and palce all of my veggie matter, coffee grounds and filter, egg shelves etc...

Plastic containers that you get baked goods in are great for gifting cookies.

Just a few ideas..

Answer 3

If your in need of a disco ball:

Make a balll out of plastic grocery bags

Wrap with foil

Break old Cd's apart and tape to ball

You can also use broken mirror

Use a string or fishing wire to hang it

Is anyone clumsy or good at breaking things? There's a solution for those broken plates, mugs, mirror, bowls etc... make a mosaic masterpiece. You can cover a frame or cover a table, bowling ball, etc.

Tin Cans work well as pencil and pen holders

Shoe boxes work well for storage containers

Answer 4

We live on a permaculture farm, and therefor do not produce a lot of trash.  

Example, we grow rapeseed (canola) and make our own biofuel for our trucks and tractors.  The squeezings are then fed to the goats...zero waste.

Foods from our garden are eaten by us, our goats, horses, rabbits, or chickens.  Other than that we can compost anything not eaten by us, or the livestock...again, zero waste.

I do still feed my Great Pyrenees (who guard the goat herd) kibble dog food.  Their dog food now comes in woven plastic 55 pound bags (instead of the paper).  In the garage we have a can crusher on the wall.  Directly below that is a wire frame that holds the dog food bags.  As we crush the cans, they drop in the dogfood bag.  At least they get double use that way.

I also use the dogfood bags to help make houses for my cats.  I take the left over fruit boxes (cardboard) and cut a cat sized U shaped hole in one end.  I cut open a dogfood bag, and wrap the box just as I would a gift, and cut our the U hole again.  Then I put a bit of old wool clothing (skirt, sweater, ect) in the bottom of the box so the cats can stay good and warm in the winter.  It gets bitterly cold in my neck of the woods...negative 5 right now with a 40MPH steady wind (with wind chill, MUCH colder).

My does (goats) wear dog collars with name tags on them (instead of putting tags in their ears).  The collars are used over and over again of course.

Plastic gallon jugs from vinegar and bleach are filled most of the way with water (allowing for freezing) and tied to tarps to help them stay in place in the high winds over the hay stacks.

Gallon juice jugs are filled most of the way with water, and placed in my freezers (if there's room).  This allows for the storage of more emergency water supply, and also reduces the amount of energy my freezers use since there are giant blocks of ice in them, instead of dead air space it's trying to keep cold.  

I buy a lot of my groceries at a restaurant supply store.  So any pickles I buy come in giant one gallon glass jars.  I reuse them to store dried beans.

We salvaged fencing from someone elses farm, who refenced in a different type of wire.  We then put the salvaged fencing up and re-fenced one of our pastures.

We always buy items like used T posts at farm auctions.  T posts are for hanging fencing wire from.

My husband works on the commercial wind turbines.  Sometimes there is a left over, very sturdy wood box (from the shipping of a large/heavy piece of turbine).  I've re-used some of those to make really nice raised garden spots...helps keep the bugs out!

Quilts homemade from used jeans....awsome!

We use loads of scrap lumber building varrious shelters for the critters...used sheet metal too (for roofs).

My husband is amazing at the number of useful parts he can get off junk cars and old tractors that have died a hard death.  Not one of our vehicles are newer than 20 years, and yet all of them look good...not silly showroom restored good, but in clean, no major problems or ugly spots, well taken care of farm condition (you wouldn't be ashamed to drive to Church in one of our trucks).

The 14x30 foot sunroom on the back of our house was built entirely with salvaged parts at the cost of about $300!!!  It's paneled with real tounge and groove wood too!!

We get a lot of medium, large, and giant used wood spools at the local electrical supply company.  I use them to hold nice pots for my plants, and the goats adore them in the pasture for a place to jump up and sun themselves.

We do not toss out computers as we update them over the years...they simply get re-purposed.  The oldest one (slow but perfectly servicable) is in the basement.  It's sole purpose in life is to run a very old software program that keeps track of items in our pantry (we have over a years supply of food).

I cannot even begin to address everything I do in my craft room....I'm very, very creative about finding a use for odd items.

I could really go on, but I think I'll stop there.  Living on a permaculture farm, and with both of us coming from families that had the mentality of "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" has given both of us strong ethics, and drives to live within our means, and be creative with what we have, or what we can aquire.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

P.S.  I forgot the solid wood bookshelf my husband made with wood salvaged from behind an auto transmition shop!  It was a pallet made from 1 inch thick, by 12 inch wide, by 8 foot lengths.  Gorgeous wood, made a gorgeous shelf....and it had just been tossed away as garbage!

Answer 5

not sure if this is what you requested but it definitely does reuse/re-purpose items in my home, or what would have gone into the trash heap. recycle vegetable scraps into vegetable broth.

  1. all the skins, tops, cores that are normally discarded, peels, seeds, nubby ends of carrots, squash innards, tough mushroom stems, green part of leeks... are saved in a ziplock bag that i keep in the freezer until i have enough.

  2. dump into pot and fill up with enough water to just barely submerge vegetables and bring to a boil. add thyme or any other condiments like rosemary (very strong, use wisely), parsley, sage, tarragon or even spices like curry. turn heat down to allow to simmer for 30-45 minutes. season to taste with salt.

  3. strain in colander. it's less messy if you remove larger chunks and place into the colander and than carefully pour the rest of the pot to strain through colander into a big bowl or another big pot. to extract even more juice after it has cooled down, collect the solids (about 1 cup at a time) and place into a piece of cotton cloth or multi-layered cheesecloth, bring up the ends and twist/squeeze out the remaining juice.

  4. store broth in the glass food jars that you've saved.

i have roasted the larger bits of leftover vegetables, before dumping into pot for slow simmer, to get  a richer caramelized flavor. you can do this with leftover uncooked meat, too, though as a vegetarian i can't really guide you on that.

try to have a good mix of different vegetables, some starchy (potatoes) some aromatics (garlic, onions, leeks) and sweet roots (squash, carrots) and all the other stuff.

Answer 6

I burn a lot of candles and save the jars.  They are wonderful storage containers for beans and pasta, they make great containers for home baked gifts and bath salts and leftover pieces from craft projects because you can see inside of them.

I also take all of the wax left in the bottom of candle jars and in candleholders, melt the wax on a candle jar warmer and make little tarts from them that I use in popurri burners to scent the air.  Double duty use of scented wax.

I keep gift cards I receive and use the fronts to make other cards, decorate gift boxes and to reuse the handled bags from department and boutique stores by gluing them over the store name.  

I reuse the containers that prepared foods come in for a variety of purposes.  The black ones from microwaveable foods make great paint trays, glue pots and places to mix glazes and resins.  They also make wonderful dividers for drawers that contain my craft implements.  They are also a great place to keep seeds between damp paper towels to start them.

I re-use gallon containers of all sorts in a variety of different ways.  Half gallons can be cut and used to start plants by drilling a hole in the bottom.  They also can act as plant saucers.  Wide mouthed containers like the ones ice tea comes in are great to use for grass seed and wildflower seeds when you re-use the shaker tops that come on spices for broadcasting seeds.

Spray bottles of all sorts get reused in my house.  Some  have vinegar & water in them to mist the shower after each use to keep mold and soap scum at bay.  Some I keep filled with water to mist myself while working in the garden on hot days.  Some I use to make my own air freshener.

I re-use liquor bottles that my neighbors give me.  I decorate the  bottles to store vinegars, cooking and bath oils, dish soap, etc. by adding pourer spouts to them.  I also use the transformer kits at the craft stores to make paraffin or citronella patio lamps from them.  I also collect wine corks to make trivets, trays, wreaths, frames for mirrors and all kinds of crafts.

Old aspirin bottles are great for making your own paint colors and storing them.  I keep all of the glass spice containers I get so that I can cut and dry my herbs at the end of the season.  That way I always have herbs on hand and often give them as gifts to my neighbors who don't grow their own.

Newspaper laid out in the garden keeps weeds at bay and with mulch put over the top, saves water by keeping the soil moist longer.

I also do the same as the answerer above me and save veggies, bones etc. to make my own chicken, beef and veggie broths.

Answer 7

my friend showed me this: you get a paper towel roll and about 10-15 grocery bags (plastic) and you make a ball with the bags and stuff them in the paper towel roll one by one. after you get all 10-15 bags in there you could store it in your car, if your dog goes p**p you have something to clean it up with on a walk, if you need to put a lunch or something in it, it is there, and so on. i use it sometimes and it is a big help