This house is a diamond in the rough. It sits right next door to our church and went up for sale last year. The congregation decided to buy the house and use it for a multi-purpose mentoring, teaching, coffee sipping, and Pastor’s new office type of building. In the fall a group of us started scraping the paint on the outside. Then it got cold. Real cold. So enough of the outside work, we moved to the inside.

After a couple of days working on the house, most of the downstairs wall board came down (don’t worry, that was planned). This past weekend a huge skiff was brought on sight and I was there to help get the broken wallboard out of the house and into the skiff.  I noticed as I was hauling chunks of wallboard out  that there was beautiful vintage wallpaper still attached to the pieces. I rummaged around the piles and found several pieces of loose wallpaper among the rubble. PAYDAY! Look what I came home with.

 

To some of you, I know it looks like garbage. But my vintage-loving kindred spirits understand my delight. I know some of you are asking, “What can you do with it?”. So, I will show you.

 

I took an old cigar box and painted and distressed all the edges.

Then I cut out pieces of one of the wallpapers to fit the sides of the box.

 

I inked up the edges of the papers to add a really distressed feel.

 

I adhered the paper to the box really well.

 

I added some embellishments and viola, a beautiful trinket box.

 

Here’s an up close look at the top.

 

See the key dangling from the ribbon?

I love the way this box turned out. Not bad for a cheap cigar box and some free vintage wallpaper. So the next time someone asks you to help them renovate, say, “Yes”, as fast as you can. You never know what those old houses have to offer!