A car is a slave to me,not the other way round.If it is safe and reliable that will do,a few nicks and tears don’t bother me.
Everything below I got for free and it was thrown in the back of one heap or another over the years,bricks,stone, slabs,timber,plants and shrubs,even the little summer house.
The latest addition was the bird table and it is made from some old pipe work that was being replaced on the Tower Bridge,to the firm doing the work it was just so much rubbish that costs to dump. I added the tables from old pallete timbers and put a roof on to try to deter the Sparrow Hawk from just doing a snatch.
This is why I run a wreck,so I am free to pick up what I want when I want.The log and Geranium too.
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Lovely garden.
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You can get it all for nothing,many contracts are on lowest tender and if you take away a couple of tons of old bricks and slab you save them around £300 in dumping,they are happy to let you have it.
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James, you have a lovely outdoor space! Builders round here pay a few thousand a year for a waste carriers licence and a dump fee, so I suspect they’d adore having you around taking stuff away.
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Yes Lois,even the small builders are delighted if you half empty their skip.
One speculator had a yard full of really good stuff but to him-rubbish,£85-£150 a ton to dump depending on if it could be recycled. It cost him more for it to stay there as the project could not move on.I got some good stuff but I found people with woodburners to take away about 25 truck loads of the rough stuff,about 40 tons,help me,I help you.
absolutely. One man’s trash is another’s treasure. I’m forever accepting bags of old patterns, fabrics and tools from people who’ve lost a relative and give me their sewing kits, and have treasured each and every item, or passed it onto someone else who will.
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I love how you’ve re used different cast off’s to make a lovely garden space. This is how I make my gardens.
My back garden is a builders yarn but it’s all reclaimed from where I took down part of the back of our house. I had to remove all the mortar off every single brick in order to re use them in the construction of our Conservatory retaining walls. The rest are stored/stacked ready for the next project. These bricks you can’t buy anymore and would cost a packet from the reclaimers yard.
The same with the tiles I took of the roof all stored and cleaned ready to use in my side garden where my small orchard and veggie garden has been created.
The Wild Cherry Tree we had to take down due to it’s roots trying to attack the drains and foundation it nearly all used up now. Some went to my father in law who turned bits into cherry bowls, and table mats/coasters. Some went to my brother who’s craves wood as a hobby. Some went to people who used it for their log burners/open fires.
The trunk is ready to be craved into a Garden Seat. The large stump is part of one garden fence and the top I intend to drill and chisel out at some point so it can be planted with herbs.
My bean poles are made from whatever I have around the garden and garage. One of my flower tubes is made from one of my car’s old exhaust back boxes.
One of my many garden gates is a reclaimed wrought iron gate I reclaimed from the skip when our old church decided they didn’t need it any more, along with the book case that held the church bibles it’s now about to go up on the wall in our conservatory which has been hand built by us with the help of a few good friends
I have two claimed enamelled baths saved in my builders yard of a back garden which will become planters. 2 large wooden pelleted that will be used to fence off the side garden from our front garden and driveway.
Oh the list goes on and on including the rock pile I had to dig out of the side garden to plant the veggie plot. A lot of that has been used up as part of the conservatory foundations under the concrete.
There are four large car tyree’s that I’m going to be painting and will become another planter in the middle of my orchard, crammed with flowers to help encourage more bees into my garden.
There is also a old glass shower screen that I will be framing and will be the top of my new cold frame the bottom bit will be made from some more of those bricks I’m recycling.
I was walking once in our local woods when I came upon a 12 large garden pots just dumped so took the all home, gave them a good clean and now I use them around the gardens and gave a couple away with plants in taken from cutting in my garden as gifts.
James my favourite recycle are the two teak chest of draws I was given by my Father in law. He recused them from the labs the worked in when they chucked them out to replace everything with stainless steel. He cleaned them, repaired the damage, waxed and polished them and gave them new tops. One sits in my dinning room and contains all my table linens while the other’s in my Conservatory holding some of my sewing fabric and some of my paper crafting supplies.
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A good red brick will cost £3 at the reclaim and a second £1.50,the renovation people are held over a barrel when it comes to heritage buildings,every thing has to be replaced old for old and so the yards simply name their price,not going to the diy for it are you?
I use old tyres for planters,below they are stacked,if anyone tries this lubricate the knife well when you cut them,cooking oil will do otherwise the knife gets hard to move and that’s when the accidents happen.
Lois, I get many art materials from people that either give up or from friends and family that find it in charity shops,some of it is good kit but all of it has a use even if it is only for pva or such like.
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Your planter is lovely James.
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The bottom tyre is a 15" 8ply Dawn,it took some heaving to turn it inside out.
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How did you do the scrolling round the sides? it looks really impressive.
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Great planter James 
I’ve seen a few different ways to use the tyrees as planters on pinterest.
Thanks for letting me know about the cutting thing.
The red bricks where I live cost a lot more than £3 each at the places we reclaimers yards we looked at.
That why I was so careful to save ours and clean them up so we could re use them.
Hubbie and I are very DIY it’s the only way we can afford it and we learn new and interesting skills.
So far we have replumped, the house with new central heating, laid under floor central heating in the conservatory, re wired the whole house to the correct new standards. Put in a complete new bathroom the only thing we did get a tradesman in for was to re plaster the bathroom. Now we know how to plaster so we do that ourselves as well now.
We had to do lots and lots of reading and watching how to Youtube video’s and some practicing on small bits and bobs before we started.
Eventually we’ll get it all finished one job at a time.
I have to do all the high up climb the ladder type jobs including cleaning out and replacing guttering.
We have invested in all the correct tools and equipment though.
But then I work on my own car only thing I don’t do is welding, and I get DH to do any electricals.
But I can strip down and rebuild a cars engine, but I have to otherwise I’d not be able to afford running my expensive to run sports car, I know my way around a piston engine and a Rotory (wankel) engine.
So if you need your injectors change or a gearbox I have the equipment and can do it. Need your brakes upgraded then I’m your woman
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Just nylon rope stuck on Dawn, some shapes cut from thin foam rubber and the whole thing gets a liberal coat of red tile paint.
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You have me there,plumbing is on my hate list,Iknow my way around a car but preffered a carburetter and distributer,all these modern sensors are a pain. I did weld at one time but cars now don’t rust how they did and I can’t say I miss the hot spatter down my sleeve and in my ear,when that happens you tend to forget you are under a car ,sit up sharply and crust yourself on the chassis.
Glad to see girl power is alive and well,there was a time when everyone would have been wearing jackboots within a month,were it not for the girls that provided the arms to fight with plus kept the food coming and the transport running.
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Like you all, hubby and I love ‘rescuing’ items.
Back fence is made from old pallets,
Flower bed edging from bricks washed up on the shoreline after a storm,
Tree stake ties are old inner tubes from bicycle repairs,
and don’t start me on the allotment!
We are always truly amazed at what people throw away, but it saves us a fortune in pennies, and it doesn’t end up in landfill.
Suzzie x
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Thats the one,every thing has a use.Allotments,that’s a blast from the past around here now,many have rabbit hutches built on them now,no gardens and you could shake hands with the person across the street from the bed room window.
But we still have a fair garden and we did have an allotment but getting a bit old now,I can still do it but tire quicker and aside from that no one seems to rent them and your plot is in the middle of Vietnam they are so over grown.
I have a never ending supply of pallettes,one company can’t give them away quick enough,loads of firewood and my Siberian cross feline friend that could stand 40 below chirps with delight as he roasts.Loads of good planks too and I get garden benches and a table we needed quickly for a big barbie we were having.The guests loved that and it was only a load of old tosh knocked up in a day.A lot of the time I even reuse the nails from them,some are ring nails and don’t shift easily.
If you don’t have one I can recommend getting a small circular saw bench,around£40,you get to rip down batons and make really expensive trellis panels with one from palletes.
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Allotments are hard to get down where I live now, there’s a long waiting list.
But when I lived up in Bedfordshire 16years ago I had 2 allotments next to each other, one on which I had a huge green house. I grew fruit on that one and veggies and flowers on the other.
The green house was made from recycled scrap wood and that poly corrugated sheeting. Everyone thought it wouldn’t work but it sure did. I rescued guttering from the skip when the builders where doing working on the house next to my mothers, and a big plastic barrel. I used those as guttering from the greenhouse and a water butt. DH found a piece of drain pipe to guide the rain water out of the gutters into the water butt.
So when I didn’t want to hook up the hose to the allotment water taps I could use the water in my water butt.
I’d spend evenings and weekend up there. My Indian neighbour had his allotment a bit further up we’d often cycled home together and exchange produce. He loved my little dogs but as his wife was ill he couldn’t have one so would spoil ours with doggie treats.
Behind my veggie/flower plot was a Italian chap who live around the corner from me. He used to swap his marrows for my Artichokes.
There was a elderly guy from Pakistan who grew nothing but the most amazing Dhalia’s, rows and upon rows of them. His always won the flower competition. He seemed to know when people were ill or not doing so well and would wait at the allotment gates to give you a big bunch of Dhalia’s to a take home. His son sold most of them in his little corner shop. He said he started growing Dhalia’s because they were his wife’s favourite flower.
I kind of missed that allotment community when I first moved down here.
All races that could all live together,why is the world in such a state? I had a friend that preffered to be known as Persian,not Iranian,a very good man.Why are we led to believe that they are the bad guys? I think those that govern are in doubt.
I remember when it was called Persia too (much better name than Iran) and Thailand was Siam.
This guy was a Muslim and a gentleman,I cannot understand this one against the other.
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