Use Your Leftover Planter Stakes To Give Your Door A Chic Upgrade

Upcyclers (and crafty people in general) sometimes have a way of seeing possibilities the average person can't easily conjure up. Instagram content creator Sarah Teresinski has this gift, which allows her to see spare plant markers as faux structural elements of doors and furniture. In this case, she's using wooden plant stakes as mock hinges for an interior door. This creates a rustic but refined look by suggesting the heavy-duty strap or T-hinges often found on gates and heavy-duty doors, such as barn doors. The hinge style is functional and decorative and can sometimes be found, usually in black, on cabinets and interior doors. 

Painted with metallic hammered gold, the markers are convincing enough at a glance, and the overall effect is fun and homey. How she came up with plant stakes for this is a mystery, but it works. And if Teresinski's name sounds familiar, it could be because we've caught her being brilliant several times, such as in her masterclass on using bookends to elevate your foyer. So it's no wonder she was able to remodel a primitive door into something more sophisticated to lead into her whimsical sitting room.

This idea can be used for more than giving your door that reclaimed cool. You can stick these things to all manner of furnishings and decor. As Teresinski explains in the video, this idea grew out of a dresser she dressed up on the "Today" show. There, the stakes created a steamer trunk effect, approximating the sort of antique trunks held together with strips of thin metal binding, strapping, hasps, and hinges. These trunks, built light for portability, weren't made of materials thick enough to join each other effectively. So, decorative metal devices were used to keep everything intact through travel and abuse. In applying the look to a dresser, Teresinski is upcycling the stakes to downcycle her dresser for the sake of kitsch.

If you are blessed with those 1960s knotty pine cabinets with strap hinges, you might already see some other possibilities for creating cohesive accents. Make your breadbox look like a little steamer trunk, or perhaps stick a couple to your dishwasher and suggest it's a very early model you rehabilitated. Should your piano bench suggest a little less Debussy and a little more dance hall? You could also convert ordinary boxes to trunks for a Harry Potter decorating theme or put fake hinges on a fake door to the "family crypt" for Halloween. These markers are about 24 cents each on Amazon, so the stakes aren't high. Have fun with it!