Urban Practicality: Repurposing Objects for City Houses

Straying from clothing for a moment... practicality and style can work hand-in-hand. If done poorly, they are in spite of one another, and it's usually tiny areas of the house where they are working together, making life easier or at least slightly more enjoyably odd.

A trout net on deep clearance from Orvis now holds fruit up and off the pantry counter (and cooled in winter by the courtyard's hopelessly drafty window).

 

A dab of sticky-putty un-damagingly holds a cheap clothespin to the cabinets in the kitchen (intended as temporary... but still there) to hold grocery lists, printed recipes, etc.

An oversized $5 ladle from a restaurant supply store in Chinatown holds up to $40 worth of spare change.

An old deep-sea lure with the hooks filed dull now holds keys.

A restaurant's slotted spoon is bent into a "Z" and keeps pot-scrubbers high and dry near kitchen sinks.

12 cheap darts are used to hold olives into a (10 ounce!) Martini glass, circa 1940.  7-8 ounces of gin and needle-sharp hand-missiles... how could this possibly go wrong?

A souvenir mortar* from a childhood field-trip to Appomattox now sits on a cheap cork coaster as a rest for an active fountain pen.

In my travels, I've found a men's tailoring shop that dispensed brass buttons from a gumball machine, an old tall-standing Jøtul wood stove that now serves as a liquor cabinet, and a delicate paper parasol that softened previously harsh lighting in a converted loft.  Simple, cheap, creative, unique, memorable, and thoughtful.  While drastic repurposing is often not available for a gent's clothing (one wouldn't swap a waistcoat with a life-vest under a suit), subtlety is explorable, and the mark of good style... with some inevitable and forgivable failures.

*Originally listed as "cannon" by YWP, correctly corrected by JKG.

Urban Practicality: Cassette Holder = Tie Rack

A local used record store was going out of business, and I'm apparently the only person in the city who feels that a cocktail party is best paired with 1960's Bossa Nova on vinyl, because the records were in abundance at $1-3 a piece.  Bossa Nova, laughter, and smoke (acceptable then) would waft up the stairs to where the children would sneak over and sit in pajamas, listening to scandalous gossip/implausible anecdotes from well-dressed guests, occasionally receiving an illegally diverted platter of sandwiches or small cakes.

The records aside, my best find was an old cassette holder which displayed all genre of tape in the rear of the shop.  I asked the manager if it was for sale, and he thought for a moment, and finally answered "Um... sure.  Ten bucks?"  Yes... ten dollars will be fine.  I had already un-run my tie to fold it and take measure, which worked.  I carried the awkward and foolish hunk of oak (yes, oak) and hardboard home, and threw some of my ties into it.  Softly folded to halves four times, they fit well. 

I decided not to remove the "ROCK" label that the record store had pasted on to tell browsers where they could find Van Halen and Rose Tattoo cassettes within the shop.  It was a nice reminder of the origin.

Mounting it on the wall is tricky, because it is pretty heavy, and a strong cleat will be needed to actually hold it up, but the ties are none the worse for the gentle folding they get, and it actually looks pretty nice.

If you have a large number of ties, it won't hold all of them, but in terms of economy of space, it can't get much better.  Bowties are obviously exempt from the practicality of this holder, but they occupy far less of the precious urban indoor real estate to begin with.

I have spent far too long experimenting with every manner of tie holder, from wagon-wheel-style spokes to rotating wooden dispensers... none of which worked for me.  Generally, the thrift shop shopper or thrifty shopper has a larger selection of ties than most men under fifty years old, so why not turn your ties into a functional sculpture?