You've heard all the terms: recycling, repur- posing, reusing. Basically they mean salvaging what you can from an old piece of furniture and putting it to use in building a new one. Example: twenty years ago, I bought a large library table at an auction for $60 or so. Made of a heavy mystery wood that had been stained very dark, the table served a number of purposes over the years -- writing desk, crafts worktable, and computer table, to name three. A year or so ago, I decided it had lived its useful life. So I disassembled it to determine what kind of wood it was and whether it was useable. My discoveries were noteworthy. First of all, the wood turned out to be 5/4 cherry. With a little ingenuity, and accepting the fact that some waste was inevitable (for example, the aprons had a decorative profile on the bottom edge; it had to go) I was able to strip and reclaim every apron and most of the top. I had no use for the legs, but they were in good shape so I gave them to a friend. I even salvaged the heavy-duty metal clips that were used to attach the top to the aprons. Since its "repurposing", parts of the one-time library table have made their way into three projects: a writing desk (shown in the photo), a small sofa table, and a mirror frame. Some lengths of stock still remain; I plan to use them in the building of yet another desk. Since I regularly buy cherry, I know costs well enough to estimate that had I gone out and bought the equivalent amount of wood from my local hardwood dealer, I'd have spend upwards of $200. Not a bad deal! Perhaps more important than the cost savings, I feel the satisfaction that comes from having made good use of an item that might well have found its way into the trash.
