| Caridad Pineiro® Romance Author

Those of you who follow me on Facebook have seen some of my renovation projects, like my park bench makeover, hall tree, or small table. I love being able to salvage things that still have lots of life left to them for a variety of reasons. One of them is because doing so reminds me of my grandfather. He could fix ANYTHING, but on top of that, he came from a time where even the smallest things, like a nail, were precious. I remember him having a collection of nails and screws in the garage in little baby jars because in his day you didn’t throw out useful things.

Now that we’re moving, I find myself doing the same thing as I organize my little section of the garage so that I have a place to work. I’ve got jars filled with screws, nails, and bolts for assorted projects. I’ve got a list of things I want to do and am excited about tackling them.

Another reason I love upcycling is that I get to see a project take shape in a way that is much more immediate than writing. That provides a lot of satisfaction. So does saving money on not having to get new things, but making old things seem new!

Finally, I feel like keeping something useful from ending up in a landfill is my little way of helping the environment.

How much do I love upcycling? Well, the heroine of a new book I’m working on is going to be a furniture flipper! That’s how much! LOL!

Being a writer is not only a solitary life at times, it’s a sedentary life. Plus, putting words on paper doesn’t have an immediate sense of satisfaction at completing something, mainly because it often takes weeks or months for your work-in-progress to be completed. For that reason, I take time to explore my other creative sides which provide that burst of “I got this done!”

Sometimes it’s making SWAG for you guys, like bookmarks or necklaces. Other times it’s about building something, like this tree hall I just finished this weekend! I had been shopping around and most of the tree halls were $300 plus and I have to confess to having a very big frugal streak (my husband calls it cheap, but I prefer frugal).

Since I had wood lying around and also a door that was no longer in use I thought: How hard would it be to turn this into a hall tree?

Well, after three weekends it turned out that it wasn’t so hard. Scrap wood, the door, some pipes and spray paint I had lying around, hooks that were on sale at Hobby Lobby, a door knob, and some gloss white paint and voila! Upcycled hall tree. Total out of pocket cost about $40. Yep, $40 and not $300. I’d say that worked out well and I got to exercise that other creative muscle in my body.