Salvaging and Repurposing, Part I

Perhaps it was my discovery of a trove of old burnished coins in the long grass at the back of my apartment building near a dumpster when I was six years old, or the stash of antique glass bottles buried at a dump near my childhood cottage when I was ten years old, or my father’s 8mm films of his trips to Grenada during my childhood, or a combination of these and other moments that stirred in me an abiding wonderment for objects and the stories they could share with us. Whatever spurred my curiosity, I remain loyal to salvaging and repurposing treasures in all of my interior design work.  

You can imagine my elation when my husband and I purchased a defunct 1920s horse stable on the St. Lawrence River back in 2019 and I found several plastic bins of old light fixtures hidden in a corner, covered in years of dust and silt.  And upstairs in the hayloft were at least two dozen old doors and windows. I kept all of these features with the hope of repurposing them in the renovation and addition that would transform the stable into our retirement home. In design projects, we always start off with more ideas than can really fit, but even if we would not end up being able to find a place for each of the salvaged elements in their entirety, we reused many of the hinges, hoods, and doorknobs that survived with them.  

Along with the lights that I had found, cleaned, sanded, and painted, various trinkets I had collected since the early 1960s were finding their place in my design for the new interior.  Whenever I would hold these old treasures and marvel at their patinas, I couldn’t help but imagine the people who had touched them before me, and wonder what their lives were like.

Glass Lamps with Keys and Faucet Handles:

These fillable glass lamps are fantastic for displaying collections of small items.  One of mine is filled with faucet handles collected over the years, whether for a tap to hose down a horse after a trail ride through the forest, or to fill a basin to bathe an infant before a bedtime story in the 1920s. Imagine what secrets to which these pieces were privy.

I heard a quote when I was a young girl that went “About magic doors there is this: you cannot see them even as you are walking through.”  Those words set about my love of collecting old door hardware and keys, and my collection found it’s home in the second lamp.  Also exhibited in there are a doorknob and a strike-plate from one of the original doors in the old stable.  

A trick to clean up old metal treasures?  Use a slow cooker with a bit of dish soap, and use the 8-hour, low temp setting.  Even old oil-based paint will fall off when the cycle is done.  Then dry the piece and use the finest grit sandpaper, between 800-1000, to remove some of the oxidization to bring out the patina.  

Old Trunk

While many of my old trunks serve as coffee tables or end tables and store bedding for guest beds, I wanted to do something special with my father-in-law’s trunk from his days at Harvard.  A piece of copper pipe to prevent bottles from falling out of the lid, a small fixed wooden shelf on the upper perimeter to display a bitters collection, and a crisscross set of legs to hold wine, turned this trunk into a functional bar between our kitchen and dining room.  My husband used his fine carpentry skills to fashion the base and add an internal shelf, cut a piece of copper pipe for the lid rail, used a leather oil to clean up the exterior finish, and affixed his Dad's Harvard graduation year of 1960 on the open lid to complete the homage.

Conclusion:
This is Part I of a Salvaging and Repurposing series. Over the coming months, I will share more repurposing suggestions! Let me know if you have a special item that you have salvaged and not sent to the landfill.  

By Kim (Bo) Stone Kalil

Kim (nicknamed Bo in high school) Stone Kalil, lives in Toronto and spends as much time as possible with her family and friends at her home in the Thousand Islands, which was previously a 100-year-old defunct horse stable. Her design company is kskdesign.ca and she designed the home with the help of architectural designer Michael Preston out of Kingston, and had many design conversations with her son Matthew Kalil a Master of Architecture graduate of University of Toronto. The extensive renovation was done during 2020-2023 by the incredible Brian Wooding from Gananoque and his talented team. Bo is an avid traveller and photographer, and dabbles in acrylic painting. and as if that does not keep her busy enough, she is pursuing a degree in psychology part-time at York University in Toronto.

Posted in: Volume 19, Issue 8, August 2024, Essay, Places