Giving old items a new purpose

Car tyres can be planted in the children’s play ground.

What you need to know:

Do you keep piling up, trashing old items when you buy new ones or spending a lot of money on buying new ones? You can save space and money by remodelling old items to create a unique item for a completely different purpose.

As you enter Ritah Musiima’s kitchen, the first thing your eyes will glance at is a broken rake hanging on the left side of the wall.
“This is a cutlery holder,” she says. Musiima says she got the idea of reusing old stuff from her friend.
“Reusing these things has saved me the money I would have spent on buying new ones, I just make a slight modification and everything turns into a different, new and unique item,” shares Musiima.
Just like Musiima, many of us have those items we no longer use in our homes. You are probably thinking of either giving them away or even disposing them of because they are taking up space you would rather use for new items. But did you know you can creatively modify these them into beautiful and unique useful items?
Here are creative ways to remodel old items in your house for a beautiful change at a low cost or no cost at all.
Old jeans
With jean trousers, Asaad Kabugo, an interior designer and chief executive officer at Fox woods Interiors and Architects, in Mengo says, jeans have a strong fabric as compared to other clothes. So, instead of disposing them, you can repurpose them in different ways. “These jeans can be used as decorative flower pots. Depending on how you want it to appear, fill them with soil and either place them on the veranda or hang them in any corner of the compound,” explains Kabugo.
“Before you pile the soil, tighten the bottom of the jeans whether cut or full length to prevent the soil from pouring,” he explains, adding, “you can pile the soil depending on how you want it to appear.
However, Kabugo admits that the beauty and uniqueness will depend on one’s creativity.
He says besides gardening, you can turn your old jeans into door rugs or aprons. These can be designed with different coloured laces.

Other simple innovative ways you can change or make use of your old jeans include making cross bags, cutlery bags. The jean fabric can also be weaved into a jewellery bag. The fabric can even be wrapped around an interior flower vase for a different and beautiful appearance. The bags and rugs can bemade using a sewing machine or manually with a needle.

Old clothes
Just like jeans, Kabugo says you can cut these clothes in different shapes and put them together to make a toilet rug, bed cover or door rug. He however, adds that to create the uniqueness, different coloured patches have to be joined by either use of a needle or sawing machine.
“You can mix materials of different colours in any desired shape or fashion and come up with different unique things,” notes Kabugo, adding: “You can even develop a decorative piece like a flower or tree that can be hanged in the living room,”he adds. These old clothes can make a good pillow or sofa cushion.

Beds
Faridah Babu Brown, an interior designer, says these beds can be remodelled into different things such as shoe racks or storage crates.
“Dismantle the bed and form something else like a storage crate where children can keep their dirty clothes instead of throwing them everywhere,” she says.
Babu further adds that one has to re-spray the bed with a desired colour that suits their taste. It should however be a rich colour that blends well with the other furniture in the room.
The same old bed according to Babu, can be used for backyard gardening. “Since it already has space in it, fill it with black soil and plant vegetables such as onions, green vegetables, egg plants among others. This will save you the market stress as well as money,” she reveals.

Curtains
Depending on the material, Babu says curtains can be changed into mattress covers, floor rugs or door mats.

Broken picture frame
Broken frames are other unique things many never think of, Kabugo shows that when you lose the glass, get in hold of the frame and turn it into your ear ring holder. “Hang it next to dressing mirror or somewhere inside the wardrobe. You can however wrap the frame with a coloured paper to create a beautiful change,” he says.

Soda, mineral water bottles
Instead of setting them ablaze, Babu advises that you turn them into candle holders or lamp shades.
“Cut off the bottle top and make some simple designs then sit in the candle, the cut designs will give beautiful light shades when projected on the wall,” she says adding: “The cut bottles can also be used as pen and pencil holders or flower vases. Here, you only need to paint it with a colour of your choice.”

Wine bottles
Wine bottles can be remodelled into flower vases. Bubu says you can only add a paint effect on to the bottles or a coloured wrapping paper to create a change.

Fridge
An old faulty fridge can be used an non-electricity storage corner. Kabugo advises to put a touch of paint effect so as to bring about a unique change or difference.

Glass tins
Since these tins cannot be burnt, they be reused to store roasted cereals such as ground nuts, pumpkin seeds, soya beans, sim sim, hard corns among others.

Plastic disposable spoons
With these, Babu says, break off the handles, get a well cut piece of plywood and glue then pile the different coloured spoon heads in a desired shape. You can make a beautiful flower, after hang it on the wall. The spoon tops can make a good mirror frame. “This can be made with children because it’s fun.”

The old shoe rack
Instead of hanging the towels on the wall, Babu says dismantle the shoe rack and remodel it into a towel holder. The room will look more organised and neat with towels rolled and fixed in the holder. Just as other stuff, Babu advise to put a hand of paint to make it new and different.

Old magazines
Get a well cut desired piece of plywood and glue, then cut out the pictures of different sizes and fix them on the plywood. This can also be hang on the wall.

Car tyres
These can be planted in the children’s play ground. However, to make them attractive, paint them with different colours. They can also be turned into swings. The same tyres depending on the size can be used for compound gardening. This time you have to cut them into two pieces, let the bottom part of the tyre face down then fill the moon-like shape with black soil and later plant your vegetables. Vegetables with tap roots like carrots are better off planted in bigger tyres like for trucks.

Old basins and buckets
Unlike jeans that have to be designed or tyres that need cutting, it is rather easier with basins and buckets. You only need to make a few holes with either a heated nail or knife then fill them with black soil and later plant your vegetables and greens.

Sugar, rice or posho bags
These are quite smaller but can easily be put to use after the rice, sugar or posho are finished no matter the size. It is simple, slightly cut off the upper part, fold it a little at the top, then fill it with black soil and plant your vegetables. You can make holes in the sides and fix seedlings just to make use of it all.
The black soil can be got anywhere around town or you can get any other soil, mix it with homemade manure or fertilisers before planting. However, remember to water the plants unless if it is during the rainy season.