Repurposed Upcycled Philco AM Radio & Turntable Clothes Hamper
Wednesday, September 26, 2012 at 10:36PM Can you imagine if the employees that originally made this Philco console piece of furniture were told back then that this would become a clothes hamper one day, what their comment would be. It might not be too nice. But, because this radio console had already seen all of its better days, I still stand my ground and say that what I do is give things an afterlife by repurposing them. So here goes the next chapter of this fine piece of furniture's next chapter...
After taking all the broken, spiderweb-caked, bad pieces and parts out, I got the piece back to structurally sound again. I used several different layers of Annie Sloan chalk paint and then went to work distressing it to the degree I wanted. Annie Sloan wax was used to finish it.
I back-painted the plastic dial face to match the aqua teal color. I fabricated a "stand in" manufacturing badge where the broken push buttons were previously that called up each station. I used a vintage HotPoint glass and metal badge with a vintage yardstick behind it. A retro drawer handle was mounted on the front to open the facing where the turntable used to be.
OPEN SESAME!!! Now you can see where the clothes hamper is! I bought a wire-framed clothes hamper body and recut the inner wire skeleton and resupported the new cuts with copper tubing to fit the exact shape I needed to open and close the door. The hamper basket is mounted on the interior of the door with some copper plumbing hangers that I modified. I used an old tension spring to keep the door closed when shut.
My daughter (the new owner of this piece for her room) chose the vintage ephemera printed fabric to replace the old, rotted burlap material that used to cover the speaker.
Vintage garden faucet handles now resides where the old dials used to be. And you can see a closer view of the newly fabricated badge.
On to the next project!!!
Reader Comments (7)
That is THE coolest hamper that I have EVER seen!!! If you sold them, I would most definitely buy one! <3
Thanks a million Melanee! Your kind words are fuel to the creative fire!
By any chance are you willing to sell all the parts that you take out in order to make this project? We restore radios like these here in Michigan and finding parts is the hard part. Thanks!
Enjoyed your website.
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How sad to destroy a console like that.
Mike, I will definitely contact you and these resources in the future if I ever take on a project like this again.
David, I make no apologies for the functional repurposed/upcycled art I make. The pieces that I find are beyond their original intent and require "furniture surgery" to bring them up to the function that I use them for. I feel strongly about my art because the things I use have only a limited time before they are hauled off to the dumps from their previous situations and conditions.
This particular radio sat in someone's booth for over a year with no interest.
I hope that my new purposes for my pieces give them more than a double life.
So basically what you're saying is the things like this would be beyond the ability of being properly restored cosmetically, right?
jmcinvale, my position is I do this for art. If you don't like it, you don't have to spend time on my blog. I could have sold 10 of these if I had wanted to and found more radios by the responses and direct emails I've had on this project. This particular one went in my daughters room. I still see plenty of the models out and about there and there are plenty left for folks like you to save. I just chose this one to make it the way I wanted to based on its deteriorated condition. We all have differences in tastes and that's what makes the world go around.
That's as far as I plan to "defend" my creations. There's no reason to continue this conversation because you don't have to like what I do and you don't have to spend another second on my blog.
I can appreciate the folks out there that like to restore these. Please appreciate my difference in this one circumstance.
Brian of GadgetSponge