Lately, I've been giving some thought to the growing trend of repurposing antiques, so I started researching the topic.   It continues to intrigue me and decided to investigate the popularity and maybe even put together a video report of my findings.

Here's one example of something I found:

Where they used a burlap sack and attached it to an old foot stool that needed recovering.  This idea along with many others, I found at:

http://www.villabarnes.com/   which is a blog by antiques dealer Rosemary.

Feel free to share your experiences or links to others websites here.

Thanks

Dan

There are a lot of people that re-purpose vintage jewelry and do quite well with it.

Daye, is that where they disassemble the jewelry and create a new piece?

Exactly Dan.  I have had people buy from me with the sole purpose of creating a new piece of jewelry.  I think that a lot of people only use broken jewelry but some break it and then use it. If you look on Ebay there are "lots" of jewelry that is listed as repair lots.  These are often bought by people that are repurposing.

Repurposing vintage stuff is a very HOT trend...there are even different styles of it. The photo you posted of the burlap foot stool is an excellent example of "Shabby Country French"...I am even seeing "Mid-Century" versions of repurposed vintage items popping up and it is amazing how creative some of the items turn out. I LOVE seeing all of the random photos on Pinterest too. ;)

Maybe I am weird but I just can't get on board with repurposing.  I don't mind so much when a piece is in such bad shape it's worthless for its original purpose.  But even that is in the eye of the beholder.  Some people like worn items and what one person would consider bad wear another would consider "patina."  And I especially hate the idea of taking a perfectly nice item and using it to make something else -- painting beautiful wood, gluing pieces together, breaking things to use their component parts.

But as an antiques dealer I know that a certain percentage of items are bought for this purpose, and I have to grit my teeth and let it go.  I have to tell myself it doesn't matter what happens to the piece after it leaves my shop, can't get into the trap of making sure it goes to a good home like it was a cute little puppy... :)

That looks cool!!