Look Ma, No Handlebars!

We’re finishing off the week with another Martha reuse it project. But, unlike some of Martha’s other ideas, this one is actually an easy transformation. Martha’s title was “Look, no handlebars!” and I think we can all agree that my editorial tweak wins the prize, n’est-ce pas? And since this is my third reuse-it idea from Martha this week, now you know that I read Living pretty religiously. It’s definitely a magazine created by someone who we think is a Smart, designed for Classics like me to enjoy. (Smarts tend to appreciate Classic’s drive for order and structure, which is why they do best in life when they hire them as secretaries!)

Now, confirmation of my theory that it’s a magazine for Classics came when I visited my friend Jody’s apartment — a likely Classic — and she showed me the the SAME page ripped from Living about reusing bike baskets. She planned to use bike baskets in her new bedroom to store socks, underwear etc. I planned to do the same thing in my closet for pashmina type scarfs.

Of course, typical of me as a frugal Classic, instead of doing Martha’s idea verbatim, I first decided to try to use these rectangular wicker baskets that I had on hand as well as some tea-cup hooks to hold them up. It’s a very jerry-rigged solution and every time I see the image of the cute bicycle basket up on a proper coat rack, I know I really ought to do it properly. But then I’ve got PixieTips to write, Pixie Books to self publish and a 3-year old to entertain and the day runs away from me.

I think what’s great about this idea is that if you have a coat rack up already in your house, you could pretty much implement the idea without touching a tool. Unless you count your computer as a tool. Here’s the link to Martha’s website but as I said, there’s not much “how to” other than to visit Young’s Bicycle Shop or strip your bike of it’s basket. But, I did find a cheaper one’s on Amazon so I’d look around. My plan was to put clothing in the basket, it might make a great catch all for incoming mail, as well as Martha’s gardening tools.