Upcycling – Darren Steele

We’re having the garage that’s part of the house turned into another room since we now have a big garage out back. So naturally I have to clean it out and there are these truly massive metal shelf units. They were going to be sent to the metal recycling at the tip but then I realised I could relatively easily turn them into staging for my newly erected greenhouse.

The first order of business was to chop the massive shelf posts in half…

This was the slave labour session that resulted in Amelia getting paint onto her juvie [ juvenile detention centre ] clothes. They seemed to enjoy themselves though

Here we see Oli earning his pocket money by using an orbital sander to take 20+ years of garage grime off the shelf so that we can paint it. This is the second set of shelves we are working on, which will bring the total to four staging units and a full greenhouse. We’ll have two going spare!

With Charlie doing a fine job of supervising

There’s nothing quite like a nice leg painting session with a cup of tea followed by a cheeky glass/bottle of red. I mean, upcycling without wine is positively barbaric.

The first shelf unit has now been turned into two full on fantastic bits of greenhouse staging. Metal shelves with several coats of radiator paint. I reckon these shelves will be in my grand-children’s greenhouse one day.