Scavenger Chic

Recycled Tiered Server

• By Joan
• January 18, 2015
• 14 Comments

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I have the most patient and understanding husband in the world.  Why?  Because I have come home with some very strange metal objects , my husband has even helped me carry some of those strange metal objects… and never does he say “What are you going to do with that?” , “Where are you going to put that?”,  “Why in the heck would you want that in our house?”, …Which is a good thing, because I usually have no idea.

Such was the case with the above axle and the round thingy with the big hole.  Both were found in a garbage pile, and I, being a self professed Scavenger, had to rescue them.  Of course, when they got home they just sat around the workshop getting dusty.  Why?  Because really, what do you do with an old axle?

It wasn’t until I was perusing an antique shopping mall and I came upon one of the cake pans, did I have that aha moment.  That cake pan would fit on my axle!  Now, if I could only find more cake pans, I could make a tiered serving tray.  Doesn’t your mind work that way too?  OK, maybe it’s just me.

I did find a couple more cake pans at the antique store, but with the first one being only $5,  $15 was too pricey.

Back to my pile of junk.  Now look at the bowl in the upper right in the above picture.  Could be a cake pan.

Nope…it started it’s life as this strange bowl with a lid and handle.  I just hope no antique dealer comes back and tells me that that was a rare antique ,because I seriously devalued it.

Anyway, back in August, on my birthday, my oldest son gave me a strange collection of junk which he thought I could do something with.  One of the items became this galvanized tin (admittedly that wasn’t much of a stretch), and 4 small shutters became a lamp, a third item was this metal bowl (a)

(b) It was perfect, other than the lid, handle, shine, it was absolutely perfect.  So I ripped off the handle and lid and got to work making it look rusty like the rest of my server.  With a palm sander, sanded the entire piece so the paint would adhere better.

(c)From pinterest, I stole the idea of rusting up my piece with cinnamon.   You can find how Deanna did it originally at It’s Just Me  .  It may look rusty but it smells delicious.  I have to say, if I told you that it took a minute to do this, it would be an exaggeration, it was that quick. Since I had bronze spray paint leftover from a previous project that is what I used.  Quickly sprayed and while it was still wet, sprinkled the cinnamon…instant rust.  It did take another minute to do the inside.

Cut a hole in the center of the bowl slightly smaller than my axle so that it would fit snug.

Also in my junk pile was this thing.  I thought it was rustier than it actually was.  Once he got a bath, his chippy paint shined through because what I thought was rust was actually dirt.

This piece still needed a base to fit on my axle. With a jigsaw, cut a piece of scrap plywood slightly larger than the hole.  This was sanded and stained with a poly-stain.

I was going to put my plywood on the inside of the circle but I didn’t like the exposed edge, so it got glued in place on the bottom.  Drilled a hole the size of the axle, and with builders adhesive, Liquid Nails, glued into place.

 The bedspring is  used as support for  the cake pan.  It was glued into place with gorilla glue as well as the cake pan.

The next level, my cinnamon pan, was held into place with a closet pole flange.  Originally brass, it was painted a brown/black to blend in.  That too was glued into place with gorilla glue along with the cinnamon pan.

 The uppermost level, the last cake pan, was found on Ebay for about $5.00 and another $5.00 for shipping.  After scouring all the local goodwills and thrift stores, I came up empty handed so I resorted to Ebay.  Right now that level is not supported by anything.  Since the final cake pan had a smaller hole, he is just shoved on top.  May have to glue him down if he gets wiggly.

 Right now my tiered tray is in the kitchen, but I can definitely see it being used for parties and holiday decoration.  It’s a good thing my husband never asked me what I was going to do with my server when I was done…because I really had no idea . He really is the best husband.

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