“Its got to be fun”
We love to find an item that has been discarded, or shelved, even disregarded and bring it back. Maybe in its original form maybe upcycle it, it doesn’t matter. There is great satisfaction when people discover and use something that they have been stepping over or walking past for the last however many years. Discovering a treasure and breathing new life into it really is so much fun and the added advantage is that most items considered antique or vintage or even retro were made so much better than most things today and therefore have the quality of substance to work with.
“You have to have stuff”
What is all the stuff in the shed? Shouldn’t we clean this stuff out? Trying to explain to people what you might do with all the bits you have picked up and brought home usually ends with laughter. So thank God for Thomas Edison who most people would consider not a nut case, because he said and I quote “To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” I wonder if he was called a hoarder in his day.
“There are skills involved”
When you first start out on this adventure most don’t have a clue about patina and finishes. The beauty of rust on steel or how long it took to look like that. The skills involved in taking something apart and then putting it back together. The use of new and old tools some of which have to be identified before you know what you can use them for. How to tell one piece of timber from another. Paint types, finishes, how to put them on and take them off, and so you learn. You find people who might know and bit by bit the mystery unravels. Its a fantastic process and one that should be enjoyed at every step of the way.