What items have you repurposed for use around the farm?

[willow_girl]

I recently discovered that an old fiberglass car top carrier makes a good, waterproof storage bin for 50 lb. grain sacks.

What items have you found creative new uses for? (Always looking for ideas!)

[Iggysbabysitter]

A dilapitated old dresser from Grampa's garage (complete with oil stains and gouges in the top, and broken dovetailing in the single existing drawer) has been repurposed into a nice vanity. The dresser is about 80 years old (or more), and needed some love. Now the oil stains are highlighted as "character", as are the gouges in the top, and the rest of it is painted glossy black. New would have been neater, maybe even cheaper... but this piece has history.
Another dresser from MIL's farm is repurposed as a bench (top drawer removed, and then the top is cut to lay inside the dresser ontop of the second drawer).
My kids old metal tube bunkbed is going to be a shelf for hay and rabbit supplies in the shed. Those things are awful as beds... the screws are stripped after 2 or 3 moves (we're military... we move a lot), and they squeek SOOO much!
I'm going to try using a brake bleeder and the foodsaver jar attachment to do some longterm storage... just waiting for the parts to show up.

[tinknal]

I made my ex wife's van into a smokehouse.

[Yvonne's hubby]

Originally Posted by tinknal

I made my ex wife's van into a smokehouse.

Ok, I gotta ask.... was she driving it at the time?

[Yvonne's hubby]

I am all the time converting some piece of useless junk into useful tools, farm equipment or other round the farm projects. old inner tubes make excellent hose and plumbing splices. I just cut them into strips about an inch wide and a foot or so long, wrap them tightly around the leaking pipe, tie them off and youve got a good repair. Sheet metal from old car bodies or barrels can be reshaped into all sorts of storage containers. I once made a water pump to irrigate my tater patch out of an old four cylinder engine block and a roto tiller. Stones collected from old fireplaces were turned into stone columns for my house foundation. On the flipside of that I once built a stone fireplace out of stone I salvaged from a foundation.

[tinknal]

Originally Posted by Yvonne's hubby

Ok, I gotta ask.... was she driving it at the time?

I'm thinking that there is a pig joke here somewhere, but I got nothin'.

[Freeholder]

We are in the process of turning the frames from a couple of old portable carports into an attached greenhouse. Looks like it's going to work pretty well, too!

Kathleen

[tinknal]

I use old corn crib sections for poultry fencing.

[danarutan]

I've been turning our empty 50# plastic feed sacks into reusable shopping bags.

[Wisconsin Ann]

An extra chunk of chain link fencing makes a great drag to smooth out the garden/field (just attach it to a piece of landscape timber at front and back ends...haul it around with the tractor.

We just salvaged a WHOLE bunch of double glazed windows (4x4') from a building being torn down. I'm going to get that greenhouse yet!

Old tires for potatoes..that's common, but we've done that.

big old filing cabinets make great mouse proof storage for food and also work REALLY well for the shop.

BIG old desk...one of those executive things...is being polished up and we'll use it for either a double sided desk for the 2 of us (it's 4feet deep) OR we'll put it up on a base, extend the top a foot on one side, and use it as an eating island between kitchen and living room.

Unused truckbed storage thingie is now what I use to store tools and feed out in the far field. No more hauling bags and bags of poultry feed out to the turkeys. No more walking back for that ONE forgotten tool that I need to repair something out there.

[tinknal]

Originally Posted by Yvonne's hubby

old inner tubes make excellent hose and plumbing splices. I just cut them into strips about an inch wide and a foot or so long, wrap them tightly around the leaking pipe, tie them off and youve got a good repair.

I've done this many times. By the time I finally replaced the galvanized steel pipes in my well pit, they were just a mass of inner tubes and hose clamps.

[MO_cows]

An old bathtub makes a dandy stock tank. Feed sacks make good trash bags for the garage. A bleach or detergent bottle can be cut to make a feed scoop. Lots of things can be turned into planters. Storage tubs can be used for chick brooders, then clean them up and use for storage again. We borrowed window screens from our RV for the top. The handle of the hoe that broke is now a prop for the door of the chicken house so it stays open all day in the wind. A couple of salvaged screen doors became doors to "rooms" in the chicken house for separate quarters for young birds just out of the brooder. Bale twine and wire gets saved and re-used for all kinds of things. Milk crates and 5 gallon buckets can become nest boxes.

[65284]

A big old satellite dish upside down with a lightbulb through the hole in the center and some legs added around the edge makes a dandy chick brooder. The heavy plastic molasses lick tubs are useful of a numbe of things, planters, turkey nests, storage bins, etc.

[bja105]

We have a leaking galvanized stock tank we use as a chick brooder.

Old tire for splitting wood. Put the round in the tire, so the splits don't go sailing away when you hit them with the axe.

[Sonshine]

We have used extra or older siding to make raised beds. Right now we're re-doing all of our floors and will be using at least part of the tiling to put up as borders around my herb gardens and flower beds.

[shanzone2001]

Kathleen and Wisconsin Ann- I would love to see the greenhouse pictures when you gals finish them!!! Sounds really nice.

I have recycled old dressers for gardening benches/storage.
I put a couple of old wood tables out in the chicken run for them to jump on. I also put an old ladder in the chicken coop that they roost on.
Old tires for potatoes here, too.
I have a 3 tiered wood wine display that I found and use for nesting boxes.

[InHisName]

old mail box in the garden for garden tool storage, an old satelight dish is our sheep shelter- wired to pine trees. plastic milk crates for potato, onion storgage. Our hoop house is cattle panels bent stapled to logs, then plastic over.
Good idea for thread......

[gone-a-milkin]

This is my newest kitty bowl on the dairy farm.
Buckets grow legs, bowls get taken by dogs or the wind.
Nobody has abscondeded with this old aluminum shovel head though.

[PyroDon]

old water tanks (the big plastic type ) for storage , alsop make a good dog house for three dogs. one cut in half makes a good 5ft diameter brooder and once chicks are grown a decent stock tank.
old shot combine that still runs makes a decent redneck bull dozer if you replace the header with a blade

[willow_girl]

Great suggestions all! Keep 'em coming.