A Magazine Devoted To Designing New Home Products Out of Recycled Junk

I was browsing through the bookstore the other day and picked up a unique magazine called “ReadyMade.” It’s a magazine devoted to making all sorts of useful and decorative items for your home using discarded and unused items that were probably originally made for something else entirely. But it’s not some stodgy old magazine showing you how to make benches out of old fruit crates. It’s aimed at a much younger (almost hipster) crowd of people who enjoy making unique things out of…well… other things.

A little confused? Imagine making a magazine rack from a junk umbrella, creating chair covers from old sweaters, making shelves from old surf boards and making all sorts of new furniture from old furniture. That’s pretty much the bread and butter of the ReadyMade Magazine and website.

There are lots of cool plans and ideas for all sorts of projects for your home. Some of the ideas are a little off the wall (literally in the case of the surf board shelving), some of the ideas are completely wacky but a good number of the plans and projects they feature are at least somewhat useful and original. A lot of the projects require some that you be at least marginally proficient in a fair number of carpentry skills and some require tools that you may not have hanging around the house such as a drill press and high end router. Some of the projects border on the “arts and crafts” edge of things, but almost everything is as least interesting to look at and pretty clever in execution.

The website actually has a lot of information that’s contained in all the past issues of the magazine, but I noticed a lot of the archives seem to be missing some of the photos from the magazine. There are also blogs and some design contests as well as links to other sites with other projects. The website is good, but the magazine really has a lot more “stuff” to it and seems easier read and understand the details of the some of the home made projects.

If you’re looking to add some unique design and functionality to your home and you need some ideas or simple encouragement, then this is the magazine for you. I don’t think I’ll subscribe just yet simply because I currently have too many projects for my home and not enough time at the moment. When it comes time for me to refinish my basement (my wife has given me free reign in my own little subterranean “mantown”!) I might be picking up another issue or two of ReadyMade and seeing what sort of funky ideas I can come up with for storage and functionality down there!