Upcycling barn finds into shop display

I’m looking forward to opening my shop. My first workshops for september are planned, applications are coming in so I feel very motivated to move forward. The next step is ‘shop display’. It’s going to take a bit of time because I want my shop display to be all about repurposing and upcycling: giving old items ‘from the barn’ a new life.

You can take ‘from the barn’ quite literally. The previous owners of our house and the owners before them never emptied the barn, so there’s a lot of stuff. There was so much to do in the previous 9 months that I didn’t have time in my head to think about this. It was one of those things that I was going to tackle in a far future.

A few weeks ago I finally climbed up the stairs again to take a closer look. I found a lot of things I can repurpose and upcycle into pieces for shop display. It feels extra special because most items in the barn come from this piece of land. There used to be another house and when it was torn down, old windows, hinges, doors and so much more were kept in the barn.

I want to take this piece of history a bit further, collect old images of the stuga (now shop) and hang them there for customers to see. I want to bring out the soul of this piece of land and its (previous) buildings.

Here are a few of the items I want to use in my shop. Be careful when you read further, this is a blog post full of cobwebs and bugs.

Some readers may know Miss Mustard Seed‘s painted spindles for displaying milk paint colours. I’m totally going to borrow her idea because it’s genius.

These drawers are my absolute favorite find, I think I have about 5 of these and 4 smaller ones. The sides are in plain raw wood and the fronts need just a bit of love. My vision is a display for drawer knobs or maybe paint brushes.

Old windows are always a good find, very versatile, with or without the glass. I’m going to remove all the glass from the broken windows and replace it with chicken wire. Clothing pins will be used to hold painting accessories, which includes something very cool made in Europe.

I also found an old bicycle (I can use the wheels to make lamps or card display pieces) and many smaller items.

I had to keep my eyes wide open while walking through the barn, there are antique tools everywhere, in the weirdest places.

There’s lots more in the barn, but I can’t do all at once. These are the first items I’m going to work on. Hope to share the result soon!