KATE BALDWIN/THE CANADIAN PRESS

A garden-rake wall hanger is one of 35 do-it-yourself sustainable projects featured in "The Salvage Studio: Sustainable Home Comforts to Organize, Entertain, and Inspire."

Antiques get new lease on life

Perched atop a bench on Beth Evans-Ramos's front porch sits a prized possession she received as a gift from a customer: a gumball machine – without gumballs.

It's red and peeling. The glass is missing. Its base is gone, too.

It's the kind of item many might conclude had outlived its useful purpose, destined for the dump or a future relegated to some cobwebbed corner in a crawl space or attic.

But Evans-Ramos has incorporated it as part of her home decor. Right now, there's a pumpkin nestled inside. As Christmas approaches, she'll likely replace it with a Santa Claus or some greenery.

She likes lamp pieces, and admits quirky little rusty objects catch her eye, like keys that can be used to make found-object jewellery.

It's a tender-hearted approach in keeping with her long-held affinity for old finds and giving them a new lease on life. And she's part of a trio of women who have turned the art of refurbishing and reinventing vintage items into a full-fledged business.

United by their shared "lust for rust" and desire to adopt the "reduce, reuse and recycle" mantra, Evans-Ramos teamed up with Amy Duncan and Lisa Hilderbrand to open The Salvage Studio in Edmonds, Wash., north of Seattle, in 2004.

"You just feel tip-top because you've just found something that was considered worthless by other people and now it's functional, because we also try to focus on giving a use to things so they're just not dust collectors," said Evans-Ramos, who also owns Garden Graces, a garden styling and decorating service, and recently appeared at the Style at Home show in Toronto.

Now the crafty trio has written a new book, The Salvage Studio: Sustainable Home Comforts to Organize, Entertain, and Inspire (Skipstone Press) to help individuals create their own customized innovations from salvaged materials.

The how to-guide instructs readers on transforming a garden rake with a broken handle or the springs from the bottom of a baby crib into wall organizers, silver-plated serving utensils into wall hooks, and a table lamp into a fountain.

Evans-Ramos said one popular project featured in the garden section is the Garden Dish Towers. Readers learn how to create garden art fashioned out of a towering assembly of china and glass pieces in plain colours and patterns.

"People love that project. It takes some patience, but there's no real skill," she said. "You're just gluing one thing on top of the other, and they just will tell me about what they've made or they'll show pictures because it's amazing: the spare cup, who knows where it came from, or you take the bowl, you turn it upside down and it's so gratifying when you don't have to buy anything but the tube of glue."

The thread of sustainable decor is also woven throughout Samantha Pynn's HGTV series Pure Design which the host describes as a makeover show with a green mandate. The series is centred around transforming rooms into sustainable living spaces.

For those who are short on funds, Pynn said it's all about working with what you already have and rethinking pre-existing pieces of furniture.

"It could be a matter of reupholstery, paint, rethinking the floor plan, moving a chest of drawers from the bedroom into a doorway or into the dining room and repurposing it in some way," she said at the recent Style at Home Show. "Instead of using it as a bedroom chest of drawers, now it gets used as storage in the hallway, or maybe it gets set up as a bar cart or something like that."

"We often will take people's existing furniture and we will reupholster, give a chair a coat of paint and maybe it's like a chandelier that needs to be refinished, but it's about working with what somebody already has because people don't know they have hidden treasures in their space."

Pynn has taken her own advice to heart, and is a fan of purchasing items second-hand and giving them new sparkle. She bought a set of four shieldback chairs she described as "rundown" and "junky," and had them reupholstered and nailheaded.

"I call it 'upcycling.' The chairs cost $50 (each), the upholstery costs $300 per chair, but to get a chair like that with that character, you can't find something that's on the market like that," she said.

"It has personality and character. It's been reinforced by a really talented upholsterer and been made beautiful."

Pynn said there are all manner of eco-friendly home decor items on the market, including bamboo flooring, organic cotton pillows and hemp upholstery.

Individuals shouldn't feel they need to sacrifice style to be sustainable, she added. If you're aiming to go for a French country or Hollywood Regency-inspired look you can still achieve it by seeking out products made in a responsible way.

"Decorating green is not always the least expensive way to go so you have to make choices," Pynn said.

"If you do it once and do it right and it will be a lasting piece, that is sustainability," she added. "Having something that's going to last a long time, that's sustainability."