Repurpose What You Have

What does it mean to repurpose what you already have on hand in your home or office? It means to take something that you have used for one purpose and use it for a different purpose. It can mean breathing new life into an object, giving it a new identity or creating a new reason for keeping it. It can also save you money!

Repurposing can be good for the environment if it means you don’t have to toss it into the garbage and thus the landfill. Repurposing something may mean you now get joy out of something that was just hidden away stuffed in a closet or in a cupboard. Repurposing can be joyful and exciting!

Let me share an example of when I helped a client repurpose something. We had been going through boxes of her mother’s belongings after her mom had died. In one of the boxes was an inexpensive plastic container that held her mom’s knitting needles. Well, I’d been working with this client long enough that I knew where her vases were. Don’t we all have a collection of flower vases? Anyway, I grabbed a vase that was just sitting on a shelf and placed the knitting needles in the vase. From there, we placed the vase in my client’s craft room front and center on an Ikea storage cabinet. Now she could see and enjoy her mother’s knitting needles every time she walked into the room and each time she sat down to create. Instead of that vase sitting idly without a job, it could now contribute to my client’s happiness and it didn’t have to be flowers in the vase.

Think about what you already have on hand and how you can use it for a different purpose and how you can breathe new life into it. I’d love to hear about how you’ve already done that with something in your home!

Monika Kristofferson is a professional organizer and owner of Efficient Organization in Snohomish County.