Discover DIY Heaven At Caravati’s (+ A Project)

While in Richmond, I stumbled across a little piece of DIY heaven. Located in a huge brick warehouse on a cobblestone street sits Caravati’s. Or, as I like to call it: my new favorite place. In my world, rainy days are meant for thrift shopping, browsing flea markets, or — ideally — digging through a warehouse filled with architectural scraps. Old doors, reclaimed mirrors, bins on bins on bins of doorknobs, keys, and locks; when you’re on the hunt for inspiration, nothing beats it. Stepping through the doors of this incredible place, it was almost too good to be true, but in fact Caravati’s has been serving up restoration and reclamation goodness since 1939.

Weaving between propped up doors, stacks of windows, and old claw foot tubs, I could barely resist bringing home everything in sight, but in the end I settled on a few small objects. Today I’m sharing some photos of this inspiring place, along with a simple project that can be created using any variety of found materials.

I’ve always had a love for the old and unusual, and find that when I’m feeling creatively challenged visiting a place such as this helps to get my brain moving again. As I was digging through various bins, I came across these antique wooden spindles and just had to grab a few to bring home with me.

Reclaimed Wind Chime

Materials:

Wooden spindles

Ceramic doorknob

Metal hoop

Wire

Wire snips

String

Begin by creating a spot for the doorknob to hang from. Use the wire and the wire snips to create an ‘X’ in the center of the metal hoop.

Next, grab a length of string and attach the doorknob to one end, tying the opposite end of string to the wire ‘X’.

Use more wire to create a loop on the end of each wooden spindle. This will allow you to hang each one evenly.

Attach the spindles to the hoop equidistant from each other and on varying lengths of string so that each spindle hits the doorknob at a different spot. Next, grab four equal lengths of rope or string and tie it to the hoop, spacing each knot at an even distance. Knot the string together to create a loop from which to hang the chime.

I chose to hide the metal hoop by grabbing a small tree branch and attaching it to the hoop with wire. You could also wrap it with leather, cord, or fabric strips!

More DIY posts from the BLDG 25 blog.

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