Here at our empty nest homestead we love to employ the three “R”s whenever we can. There’s just something so satisfying about finding new ways to use old things! Plus, we’d just be hoarders otherwise since we love to collect all sorts of things and yet it’s so hard for us to throw anything out.

As you probably know by now, we LOVE collecting antiques, so a lot of our favorite recycles have been pieces we’ve found a new use for, like the bakers table we use as a coffee table I wrote about recently. It goes perfectly with this chipped Red Wing crock I keep my corn stalk plant in:

The chip is on the backside and is now perfectly hidden.

One of my favorites is our salvaged antique creamer base-turned-mailbox. The guy at the antiques place practically gave it to us for free because it was missing the top so we happily took it home and found a new use for it:

This rocking chair was on its last legs until we repainted it and put it out in the front garden to hold flowers:

It’s next to the old fence piece we reused in front of the window downstairs I’ll be using this year to plant morning glories on:

Another is the old hand pump we turned into a fountain for our pond:

Just a bit of old wood and voila!

Speaking of old wood, we have a hundred year old handcart and old wooden half barrel that we’ve turned into a lovely place to display flowers:

We have a lot of old, rusty pots we’ve painted and turned into outdoor flower pots.

Some we leave the rust on. We like rusty things!

These particular ones used to be semi truck brake drums:

We even turned an old manure spreader into a flower bed:

You know how TV’s used to be smaller (yet weighed a ton)? Before the wider, lighter flat panels came out we had this lovely entertainment center that fit the old style TVs. When we upgraded I wasn’t quite ready to let go of it so I recycled it into a home barista stand:

A few years ago I learned a neat way to reduce the earwig population by recycling these mason jars into bug catchers:

Just by punching a hole in the lid before adding a bit of used cooking oil and laying them on their side, they become a rather cute and effective death trap:

These are just a few examples. I have a ton more but I’ll save them for a future post. Between you and me, I still haven’t ruled out using recycled husky fur to stuff my adorable little teddy bears! 🙂

How do you reduce, reuse and recycle?