Repurposed Upcycled Philco AM Radio & Turntable Clothes Hamper
Can you imagine if the employees that originally made this Philco console piece of furniture were told back then that this would become a clothes hamper one day, what their comment would be. It might not be too nice. But, because this radio console had already seen all of its better days, I still stand my ground and say that what I do is give things an afterlife by repurposing them. So here goes the next chapter of this fine piece of furniture's next chapter...
After taking all the broken, spiderweb-caked, bad pieces and parts out, I got the piece back to structurally sound again. I used several different layers of Annie Sloan chalk paint and then went to work distressing it to the degree I wanted. Annie Sloan wax was used to finish it.
I back-painted the plastic dial face to match the aqua teal color. I fabricated a "stand in" manufacturing badge where the broken push buttons were previously that called up each station. I used a vintage HotPoint glass and metal badge with a vintage yardstick behind it. A retro drawer handle was mounted on the front to open the facing where the turntable used to be.
OPEN SESAME!!! Now you can see where the clothes hamper is! I bought a wire-framed clothes hamper body and recut the inner wire skeleton and resupported the new cuts with copper tubing to fit the exact shape I needed to open and close the door. The hamper basket is mounted on the interior of the door with some copper plumbing hangers that I modified. I used an old tension spring to keep the door closed when shut.
My daughter (the new owner of this piece for her room) chose the vintage ephemera printed fabric to replace the old, rotted burlap material that used to cover the speaker.
Vintage garden faucet handles now resides where the old dials used to be. And you can see a closer view of the newly fabricated badge.
