Create the Look: Mini Mending Cabinet
It’s the little things that can save so much space— like this secondhand shelf, now living out its new life as a mini mending cabinet in our combination bathroom and laundry room. (When in doubt, go vertical if it’s safe. The best, untapped storage spaces are often UP.)
While Adam and I are no experts at patching and darning, our little ones are certainly experts at wearing holes in everything.
For our 7 year-old, it’s the knees of every pair of pants he has. For our 2 year year-old it’s the tips of her sleeves. And for our pups, it’s every dog bed, fitted sheet and plush cushion in the house.
So we simply try our best. Because as we’ve learned through our journey over at the Tiny French Farmhouse, restoration and repair don’t have to be carried out perfectly in order to be not only effective, but also absolutely delightful.
By request, here’s the latest Get the Look… but I don’t want everything I publish to be shoppable. I don’t wan’t to earn income by constantly encouraging people to buy more, when I know that most of us can (and should, for environmental reasons,) live with less. What I do want is for folks to be comfortable, confident and content in their small homes or apartments. And I want to be a resource for reliable ideas that can help you spend less time searching for your stuff, and more time with the ones you love.
So when people ask where I got something that’s in our home, I usually point them to similar handmade and vintage designs. As such, for folks who inquired about this little cabinet: here are some secondhand items and independent online storefronts with handmade goods that can help you recreate this look in a sustainable way that suits YOUR needs and YOUR style.
Repurposing Household Items: The Baker’s Cooling Rack
Note: While this entry is about a very specific item within our cottage — a reimagined, vintage baker’s rack — the message can be extended across countless home goods, as outlined towards the end of the post.
When we were designing our little bathroom / laundry room combo, I knew I wanted to leave space for linens to air dry.
Our shower is one of those spaces. When it’s not in use for bathing, we sometimes pop open a vintage, collapsible drying stand for larger, damp linens beneath the windows and skylights. Another area we reserved for drying out (smaller) textiles was the wall space bordering the stacked washer-dryer. I wanted a fold-down, slated platform for items like still-damp, clean cloth diapers, and freshly washed Swedish dishcloths, but I didn’t want a newly-made plastic or metal rack from a big box retailer. So I went shopping within our home instead.
My eye fell upon an old French bread cooling rack that was dangling decoratively on our kitchen wall, waiting to serve a new purpose. It’s the kind of willow and reed shelf once used in a French boulangerie for supporting freshly-baked loaves of bread while allowing oxygen to flow around them. This was THE PERFECT size and design for what I had in mind by the washer-dryer. But what hardware would I need in order to attach it to the wall in a way that would allow it to function as needed?
Again, we looked around our home. We found spare mug hooks in various sizes, two leftover chords from a suspended book rack (pictured in this post, 5th image), and a small piece of driftwood— all of which we could put to use to make the rack fold up and stay put, or fold down and support the necessary amount of weight.
What we ended up with works for our tastes and the semi-foraged interior we hoped to create, while serving the necessary purpose.
If this approach to interior decor sparks your interest, try this when sourcing items for your home:
Stop searching for newly-manufactured goods by a specific name, such as “drying rack.”
Instead, imagine what items could serve the same purpose based on general functionality, design, materials, size, etc.
Then consider if you already have something that could work…
… Or if you can find a vintage or second-hand item that can be repurposed.
You’ll likely save money and enhance the character, originality and functionality of your home… all while being a more responsible steward of this planet.
The Upcycled Bedroom Sink
One of the small but mighty features I was most excited to include in the design of our new cottage is the sink in our primary bedroom.
Our ~900 sqft home has one bathroom for the four of us, which we believe is enough since the kids’ grandparents’ home, which has multiple bathrooms, is a lovely one-minute stroll away. Plus, a key concept behind this “ADU” cottage and our French Farmhouse is to live with less stuff by sharing more resources.
One of my clients overseas has a sink in her bedroom, and it’s a design feature I enjoyed often when staying at her home. I found the opportunity to keep select self-care routines within the intimate cocoon of the bedroom to be beneficial in terms of both logistics and mental wellbeing.
I personally don’t function well when I’m rushed, and having (wonderful) children tugging on my clothes while I attempt to capture two minutes for myself at the bathroom sink to be stressful, but not reason enough to add a costly and largely unnecessary second bathroom.
Per usual, our aim behind the design of this sink was to use up as many existing items as possible, rather than sourcing newly-manufactured goods. However, I do intend to acquire a decorative switch plate cover and electrical outlet plate via Buster & Punch, as those standard white plastic ones make me cringe.
The sink is an antique, wooden French bowl (via Elsie Green). It’s coated / waterproofed inside with Rove & Dwell finish coat.
Much of the copper piping was salvaged from local, small business that was modernizing their interior.
The pedestal is a handmade plant stand I found on Etsy,
The mini cabinet was a second-hand find.
The ledge is a spare, river-recovered pine floorboard from The Goodwin Company.
The hooks and folding mirror were leftover from a previous project.
Clay candleholder is vintage via SSS Atelier.
Lime paint in “Cobblestone” by Color Atelier.
Vintage-style rotating soap holder via Vivi et Margot.
Our friend Danny helped us bring this to life, and we’re thrilled with how it turned out. It’s one-of-a-kind, meaningful, and ever-useful.