I grew up in a home where nothing was ever thrown out, where every bit of string and every nail was carefully put away so it could be reused for future purposes, and more often than not, it actually was. My parent had no qualms about adopting possessions that were no longer useful to others and, when my grandmother’s console TV stopped working, it was gutted, stripped and refinished and then pressed back into service as a bookcase for my brother’s Shas. So the idea of breathing new life into something you already own, using leftover bits and pieces as springboards for future projects, is probably a tendency to which I am genetically inclined. I confess that I don’t save every scrap of wood, nor am I the kind of person who can find an old door and transform it into a coffee table, but every now and then the ingenuity and ability to think outside the box that was likely ingrained in me as a kid likes to pop out and let itself be heard.
It all started with the stepladder. We probably bought it shortly after we moved into our house, some 24 years ago. It was a two-step metal stepladder, painted white, with textured rubber pads on both steps to keep you from slipping when you climbed on it. It folded up neatly, was lightweight and, most importantly, it was our go to extra chair for the youngest-child-du-jour over the years when we needed to squeeze just one more person at the kitchen table.
And then we did construction in our house and the workers adopted my stepladder. They used it for painting, spackling and I don’t know what else, but by the time the renovation was done, my stepladder was ready for the scrap heap. It was covered in spackle and the rubber pads were sliding off, leaving the exposed still-sticky glue on the steps. In short, my once uber-practical stepladder was a mess. My wonderful husband went out to Lowe’s and bought me a replacement, but it was heavier than my old one and because the carry handle at the top curved inward instead of out, it was no longer usable as auxiliary seating. Despite its mega-icky condition, I held onto the old stepladder until I could find a replacement that I liked.
Meanwhile, I really did need a new stepladder. My newly refinished closet had shelves up to the ceiling and I found myself looking for the twin of my original one, which could serve both to give me access to the top shelves, as well as a chair for extra seating (and yes, I confess, for occasionally serving as a dumping area for clothing I am too lazy to put away). I looked every place I could think of, both in stores and online, but I couldn’t find a stepladder that was as functional as my old one. And that was when lightning hit.
Why couldn’t I just fix the old one? Structurally, it was exactly what I needed and it wasn’t broken in any way. It was just sticky, spackly and on the ugly side. Nothing that a mini face lift couldn’t cure.
I took my stepladder out to the garage and got to work. With the help of a blow dryer (every girl’s best friend when it comes to taking off stickers neatly), I removed the already peeling rubber pads, took some Goo Gone (if you don’t have any in your house, go out and buy some now!!) and got rid of the glue residue on the two steps. Next, I hunted up some sandpaper and got to work, sanding off all the extra paint and the clumps of spackle that made my stepladder look like a mutant from another planet. And that was when the fun really started, because while my stepladder had originally been painted a boring, respectable, innocuous shade of white, it was about to be transformed from an ugly duckling into a cute, little swan.
