Salvage Sisters': Guide to Finding Style in the Street and Inspiration in the Attic Book

Inspired by everyday objects, the Salvage Sisters rescue more than fifty common castoffs—orphaned drawers, a hobbled couch, a broken birdbath—and cleverly transform them into style statements loaded with ingenuity, wit, and humor.

Join intrepid hunters and gatherers Kathleen Hackett and MaryAnn Young in this step-by-step illustrated guide as they travel the country—down alleyways and side streets, to flea markets and yard sales, through the local garden store and their own closets—and learn how to transform a battered curbside couch into a fabulous and functional piece of furniture; raise discarded Sunday comics into an art form; customize a cookie-cutter set of drawers into an instant heirloom.

The Salvage Sisters show how to cleverly incorporate the tired but treasured family china, torn lampshades, and everything else tucked away in the attic into our modern life. The simplest utilitarian objects—a plant stand, some nautical rope, an old pair of jeans—are all ingeniously reinvented in these real-life sisters’ hands. Dozens of resourceful projects—ranging from a two-second slipcover or ten-minute chandelier or frumpy mirror facelift to a dapper dog sweater and soigné table skirt—plus helpful tips, alternative project ideas, and more than 125 detailed color photographs, make this a book for anyone yearning to inject beauty and whimsy into his or her life, Salvage Sister style.

Publishers Weekly

What could become of a five-dollar box of ball fringe? Or a beautiful old ball gown? A torn lamp shade? What about that cast-iron lobster-shaped cornbread mold? The spunky sisters (n e Salvage) have uses for all such quirky items, and in this marvelous guide to making the old new, they infuse what could've been a humdrum how-to book with the narrative suspense of a novel. Their bubbly anecdotes explain how architectural salvage, like pediments and porch brackets; furniture; old clothes, curtains and cloth; and other "humble bits and pieces" can be whimsically repurposed. Hackett, who worked on the publishing program at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and Young (The Complete Idiot's Guide to Decorating Your Home) give instructions for each of the 50-odd projects, often recommending the use of glue guns, handsaws, electric drills and needle and thread. Granted, a lot of what the authors preach is more about attitude than usefulness. For example, how many readers will actually make a sculpture by gluing mussel, oyster and scallop shells to a mannequin? But such a project certainly reinforces their mantra: "when in doubt, don't throw it out." (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.