I have a very elaborate wicker baby carriage from the 1890s, with swans on the sides. But I don’t have a baby, so it’s in the front dining room window, filled with houseplants.
I also have a 19th-century Singer sewing machine in my kitchen . . . again, with houseplants.
And I keep fruit in a big round glass bowl . . . that used to be the window in the door of a clothes drier.
And I have an old coal scuttle that I use as a wastebasket.
What’ve you got?
A cheap tool chest as an end table.
An antique lead cup for a pencil holder.
A microwave cart as a computer desk.
A hamper for a toy chest.
A lava lamp as a night light for my youngest sister.
I’ve been known to use pop-sickle sticks and duct tape to splint broken/sprained fingers.
A cool 60s card catalog, converted to hold all sorts of little things. My childhood Radio Flyer wagon holds some potted plants. A few people bowls that I use for pet food, but that’s about it.
I tend to wait or make what I want.
My great-grandfather’s little red wagon is holding a collection of antique planes and some houseplants.
A brass garbage can from a casino is now a bathroom sink stand.
An art deco era sideboard is now a clothes dresser.
A wooden pony wagon serves as my desk, with a glass top covering it. underneath are displayed many knickknacks.
In case of fire or urgent evacuation, I’ll have a pony come into my basement and drag the whole thing out.
A bag milk pitcher serves as a handy scoop for cat kibble.
I have a big, grey fishing tackle box for my sewing supplies. It works beautifully - I’ve filled up all the little container spaces with the billion and one tidbits you need for sewing and crafts.
I have a couple of milk crates that I use for filing boxes, but I’m planning to get an actual filing cabinet soon.
Oh yeah, we have a couple of tv trays that we use for end tables in the living room, too. Someday we’ll get grown-up furniture, but not just yet.
I know someone who once used a plastic meat baster as a tool for an enema. Not sure if it was disposed of afterwards or just desinfected.
We use to have a wood half-barrel planter in the backyard, but it rotted out over the years (guess it wasn’t cedar) and so was tossed.
Which leads me to wonder - for hundreds of years the wooden barrel was a mainstay of shipping - but now, wooden barrels seem restricted to use in aging various types of alcohol, and for decorative purposes (such as planters, patio tables, display stands etc) - are wooden barrels used for shipping things outside of wine and liquor anymore (in the US/Canada?)
My big steamer trunk is often used for a coffee or side table, but it becomes a Christmas tree stand annually during years when there are small two- or four-legged puppies in the house. The old marble-topped plant stand makes a handy side table in a tight space. (Besides, plants hate me. A lot.) And two drawers of the sideboard are used for baby clothes right now, while we reconfigure Lily’s bedroom.
Oh, and all cardboard boxes, regardless of their original purpose, are Lily’s favorite new toys. Along with empty paper towel rolls. And any scarves, sunglasses, shoes, and random clothes left within her reach are soon to be found on her and/or one of the dogs. (Great Pyrenees are surprisingly patient about that sort of thing, incidentally. And very cute in pink sparkly sunglasses.)
My grandmother’s wooden high chair holds a big houseplant on the landing under the skylight.
I’ve got a Spong cast iron meat mincer that I’m using to grind up plastic bottles. I’m remelting them using a sandwich toaster and welding the remelted panels together using a clothes iron. (I’m trying to make a boat)
I have a vintage Singer sewing machine that so far has been mostly used for stitching together plastic bags and paper (experiments - no results yet)
I have a play-doh extruder set that I’ve only ever used to form cookies.
I bought the upside-down tomato planter things 'cause I love tomatoes and home-grown ripeness is better-tasting than store-bought hothouse versions. Anyway, you can hang these things from patio-cover rafters, or buy the industrial shepherd’s hook they offer (which I’m told will bend under the weight of the dirt alone. However, since my apartment balcony lacks an awning/cover or a layer of dirt – well one deep enough to jam a shepherd’s hook into – I was stuck for places to hang my tomato planters.
When Mervyn’s was going out of business, I went to their “everything must go” sale and bought a T-shaped stand, used for displaying clothing on hangers. It’s got a heavy base that sits flat on my balcony and I can fit two Topsy-Turvy Tomato planters on either side of that thing and the arms won’t bend at all.
I just gotta quit over-watering…
===G!
“I got a rattlesnake for a necktie…”
. --George Thoroughgood (Delaware Destroyers)
. Who do you Love
. [Yeah, I know it’s a cover, but I have no idea whose]
I used a friend’s maxi pad as a napkin. Don’t worry, it wasn’t used. Those things have amazing absorption!
I have an antique cut glass cake stand that, 99% of the time is used to hold my fresh fruit, the remaining 1% for its original intended purpose.
I have a three shelf bookcase that I re-purposed to a small dresser for my bed linens and PJs after receiving a family heirloom bookcase for the living room.
Small, flat tackle boxes for papercraft tools (decorative edge scissors, rubber stamps, etc)
Clear plastic shoeboxes for craft supplies.
Orchard crates for a variety of uses (my dad used to manufacture them - they were all new when I brought them home piecemeal).
A sewing machine cabinet (not antique) as the stand for my printer.
Over the years of moving around, a lot of my posessions have had to be flexible in purpose.
[hijack] Mangetout, do you know about fusing plastic bags? [/hijack]
Tackle boxes seem to be cheaper, better made, and generally more useful as sewing boxes than the containers that are sold as sewing boxes. They generally look more utilitarian, and for some people, this is a drawback. I’d prefer for my sewing tackle boxes to be more decorative, but so far I haven’t really been bothered enough by their looks to do something about it.
There are clipboards that have a space to put papers and pencils and such. Basically, they are boxes with a clipboard clip on top. I’ve found these clipboards to be incredibly useful to hold my embroidery or crochet projects. I made a bedspread of medallions, so I clipped the instructions for the medallions on top and put my medallions and scissors and hooks in the container part when I put things up. I used to keep my embroidery projects in zip seal plastic bags, but the clipboard will let me put EVERYTHING in it, unless the project is huge.
I have my grandmother’s phonograph table that I use as a microwave table and have all my cookbooks in the bottom between the slats where the LPs were supposed to go. However I am running out of places for new cookbooks.
For a wedding present, my father-in-law gave us a lamp made from the brass firehose nozzle from his first fire truck.
I also use a treadmill as a clothes rack. 
