tour de freebie

If you read this blog you already know about my building's basement-give-away-spot.

If not, it is as it sounds. I live in a big building and there is an on-going, anonymous, informal trading system going on with all my neighbours via a special location in the basement.

I give to the spot and I receive from the spot...

Today I picked up someone's DIY-poster-stuck-on-a-hunk-of-pressboard-situation. This is actually the second time it's been to the basement! Someone else brought it upstairs and lived with it for a few months and brought it back again. So it goes.

I rather liked the picture but had passed on it for several days because the whole thing was a bit of a mess... but today, in a fit of procrastination, I realized I might be able to work some magic.

It's from the Tour de France in 1924 and the caption says the front rider is Ottavio Bottecchia ascending the Galibier. I like the people in the crowd.

I managed to get it unstuck from the ugly board, trimmed it down, and hung it up in my studio with some cool old clips.

Viola! Sweet score!

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DIY bike rack

I think the bike rack that my Husbo created deserves a little more attention than I gave it previously because it's such a clever space-saver and he made it with only some scrap wood we had in the apartment and two cheap screwdrivers (to hold the bikes in place).

You can do it too!

The best part is, since the bike's weight is still on the floor, you don't need to worry about using heavy-duty wall mounting stuff.

For my part, I painted it white and added the hooks for hanging lights and reflectors and such.

Our building's bike room is currently chockablock and it has this weird door situation: two doors back to back that open in opposite directions. Both require unlocking and both are spring-loaded. The whole thing is terribly awkward so we've opted to keep our bikes in the apartment for now.

The other bike is absent from this picture but the rack does hold two bikes.

We hung a map of our new city right beside the bike rack so we know how to get where we're going.

(I found the skates in the basement-giveaway-spot. Just my size!! I'm super excited to try them out on the canal next winter!!!)

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