Recycling Wood From Furniture

[shackdweller]

I had an old couch that, over the years completely wore out, and I got rid of the cushions, springs, and cloth coverings.

I have been wondering if the wood frame of the couch could be used for some shelving I want to do in my shack.

The wood seems in places to be rough and splintery, and obviously I do not want to be handling splintery wood.

Could this type of wood be smoothed off with sanding, to rid it of splinters, or is such a thing impossible with this type of wood?

 

[oldognewtrick]

Can you, absolutely. You must decide if the rewards are worth the effort

 

[Sparky617]

If people are building stuff out of pallets you could probably do this. Is there much wood that would be useful if smoothed out? Personally, I'd probably use it as firewood because I'm not sure the effort would be worth it. Having a planer would be most helpful for this but you'd need to ensure that all metal has been removed from the frame or you'll spend more on planer blades than you'll gain in wood.

 

[bud16415]

I’m a pack rat and I find it hard to throw out useful pieces of wood also. What I normally do is clean up anything I’m breaking down and if there are a few nice good looking pieces of hard wood I stack them in my wood storage area until a time I have a use for them. Some have been there a long time, as soon as I toss them for sure the next week I will need something like that.


In the old days furniture framing was really good wood inside starting around the 70’s it was mostly junk unless it was seen. Most framing wood in furniture was used because it was stable and straight grain. It wasn’t the most beautiful of woods.


If you have a use for it and can smooth it up I say go for it. Sounds perfect for the shack.

 

[shackdweller]

Thanks for the replies, everybody, which stated some of the problems I had thought of.

I am for the present stacking the wood in a corner, and I don't think all of it would in any way be practical to smooth out, because of some of the problems already referred to.

What I think I will discard at the recycling dumpster first, will the the very worst pieces with the most staples in them, and the most splintery.

I'm thinking at the most there could be a few pieces of salvageable wood among all of it, but I could change my mind in the future and decide that none of it is worth the time and/or money to smooth it out. A few pieces of the wood are very smooth, but hose pieces are small, odd pieces that would not be usedful for shelving.

Always great to be able to put my household concerns before people with the experience that I can benefit from.

 

[shackdweller]

bud16415 wrote:

I’m a pack rat and I find it hard to throw out useful pieces of wood also. . .

Some have been there a long time, as soon as I toss them for sure the next week I will need something like that.

If I had a dollar for every time I've done that . . .

The Story Of My Life.

 

[shackdweller]

As a Well Known Member, the time is long overdue that I should have an avatar of my own for my profile and posts. I was planning to show more of the wood that I am recycling from that couch that I took apart, but somehow did not get it into the picutre, instead, getting the aluminum ladder that I keep on my condo balcony, and have used sometimes indoors, with the cathedral ceilings being so high, and took indoors along with my patio furniture during the hurricane of going on now a year ago.

I gave that ladder a very good cleaning while I had it indoors and have now returned it to the balcony.

I do plan to take another photo, with the wood I am recycling from that worn out couch, as the center of the photo, and use it as my new avatar, but at least getting an individualized avatar on here rather than the generic one, is a good start.