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Five years ago we bought a brand new bit of wood. I think it was pine, but don't hold me to it. OH varnished it, and fixed on little strips of offcut bits of wood he found in the shed. This made it into a cot-top changing table-thingy for the baby I was due to have. It was fairly well used, but TBH it was easier to change her on the bed in the middle of the night.

When LO grew too long for it, OH fitted hinges on one side and a hook on the other side and it became a safety gate at the top of the stairs.

Then, last year when it snowed heavily and we felt we didn't need the stair gate any more (I'm not saying the snow negated the need for a stair gate, it was just coincidental ), he took it down, removed the hinges and hook, fitted a seat and ropes from an old, broken swing on it, added some more offcuts and suddenly ------ it was a sledge . And not only does our little girl have a fun ride now and again, OH takes it to work with him! He's a postman and due to dodgy shoulders needs a trolley, but his trolley isn't designed to go through snow, so he takes his sledge instead.

Rosendula wrote:Five years ago we bought a brand new bit of wood. I think it was pine, but don't hold me to it. OH varnished it, and fixed on little strips of offcut bits of wood he found in the shed. This made it into a cot-top changing table-thingy for the baby I was due to have. It was fairly well used, but TBH it was easier to change her on the bed in the middle of the night.

When LO grew too long for it, OH fitted hinges on one side and a hook on the other side and it became a safety gate at the top of the stairs.

Then, last year when it snowed heavily and we felt we didn't need the stair gate any more (I'm not saying the snow negated the need for a stair gate, it was just coincidental ), he took it down, removed the hinges and hook, fitted a seat and ropes from an old, broken swing on it, added some more offcuts and suddenly ------ it was a sledge . And not only does our little girl have a fun ride now and again, OH takes it to work with him! He's a postman and due to dodgy shoulders needs a trolley, but his trolley isn't designed to go through snow, so he takes his sledge instead.

And I bet that bit of wood will continue to evolve.

I got a house roof recently and fancy using some of it cut into 1" thick pieces to make a kitchen bench. So for a house that was built in the late 1800's the wood is still being used in the 21st century..... or your bit of wood and my bits of wood could all be scrapped and we could buy plastic contraptions.....

Few years ago we were given a load of wood by a good friend from his parents garden for chopping up for our woodburner. Amongst it was a beautiful piece of cherry. The strange thing was it turned out that his parents had planted the cherry tree many years ago and it had now got too big so was chopped down. Shortly afterwards his father died and we put the piece of cherry to one side. Later that year our friends had their 25th Wedding Anniversary so we took the wood to a woodturner and had a clock set into a frame plus two other small pieces made out of it as a present.

Needless to say our friend was quite overcome and a few tears were shed.

Sue

Ahhhh what a lovely story Sue And Rosey it's great to really make good use of something like that, well done. I wonder what it will be next?