Here in Vermont, there is an old Yankee Farmer ethic of "making do with what ya got," which comes together with the newer hippie ideal that everything is recyclable. This has created a trend toward "upcycling" -- taking old or useless objects and tranforming them into something artsy and cool. When Austin discovered people making furniture out of skis, it awakened his inner Vermonter.
My dear husband, great afficionado of sporting equipment that he is, never could stand to see skis being thrown away. Ever since we moved to Vermont Austin's been collecting old skis found at ski swaps, propped against roadside "free" signs, and even a lone ski that floated down the stream. Finally, last week, he got out the tools and transformed three pairs of skis into an upcycled Adirondack chair.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that he didn't actually build the whole chair. He found an old chair cheap on Craigslist and replaced its back slats with skis, thus rescuing both the chair and the old skis. Double upcycling!
On a roll, Austin found an old snowboard and turned it into a rack to hold our cross-country skis out in the barn.
Then we ordered a pair of metal supports so he could build us a bench made of two gorgeous old black and orange snowboards. (Here he is multitasking: building a bench while watching football.)
It's a beautiful bench and very sturdy, as you can see. The plan is to put the snowboard bench out by the snowboard ski rack so we can sit on it while gearing up for a cross-country ski run. Though if we don't get some snowpack soon, Austin may just end up making all of our winter sports equipment into furniture...!
