From Thrifted Shutters to a Space-Saving Vendor Booth Display

Sometimes the best upcycling projects start without a plan.

If you love thrifting and yard sales as much as I do, you probably understand this: sometimes you buy something simply because you know it’s too useful to leave behind.

That’s exactly how this project started.

I found a sturdy little printer cart at a yard sale for just $5. Did I know what I was going to do with it? Absolutely not! But it was well made, it had a useful drawer, and—most importantly—it had four wonderful castors.

At the very least, I figured I could harvest those castors for another project someday.

Then There Were the Shutters

The shutters were another thrifted find. I spotted them at the Goodwill located right next to the antique mall where I have my Crazy 4 Castors vendor booth.

In fact, I didn't even take them home! I brought them straight into my booth, cleaned them up and used them as part of my booth decor for a while.

Eventually, though, I needed the space and brought the shutters home.

That's when I started looking at them differently.

My inventory of Iron Orchid Designs (IOD) products was growing, and I needed a way to display more merchandise without sacrificing a lot of precious floor space in my booth.

When I put the shutters together and tried them on top of that $5 printer cart, I realized I might have the beginnings of exactly what I needed.

Turning Two Thrifted Finds Into One Display

I painted the printer cart black during one of our Thrifty Thursdays at Cottage and started experimenting with ways to securely attach the shutters to the base.

The V shape turned out to be especially useful. Instead of creating a wide fixture that would eat up valuable booth space, the shutters gave me lots of vertical merchandising space in a relatively small footprint.

Of course, figuring out how to hang merchandise from old shutters was another matter!

The Great Hook Experiment

I tried several different kinds and sizes of hooks before finding a surprisingly simple solution: flower pot hooks from Walmart.

The metal was thin enough that I could bend and reshape the hooks to fit the shutter slats, but sturdy enough to hold the packaged merchandise.

They cost me about $12, and as it turned out, those hooks were essentially my only new expense for the entire display.

Everything else had already been thrifted, picked up at yard sales or found in my own stash.

And you know I love that!

A $1 Yard-Sale Find Comes in Handy

At some point a year or two earlier, I'd picked up four decorative wooden corbel-type pieces at a yard sale for a grand total of $1.

No particular project in mind. (Are you sensing a theme here?)

Their shape turned out to be perfect for this project.

I painted two of them black and used them to create the quarter-round top and middle shelf areas within the V-shaped shutters.

Those little shelves made a huge difference. The upper one gave me a place for signage, while the center shelf broke up the long vertical display and gave me another spot for merchandise.

Making the Base More Useful

The printer cart was already a great foundation for the display, but I wanted to make use of the space underneath it as well.

The wooden drawer gave me some concealed storage at the bottom while the castors made the entire tall display movable—especially helpful in a vendor booth where I'm constantly rearranging things.

And those castors I originally thought I might harvest?

They got to stay right where they were!

Even the Sign Was Made From My Stash

I wanted the finished fixture to look like an intentional retail display rather than two old shutters sitting on top of a printer cart, so signage was important.

Once again, I went shopping in my own basement.

The base for the sign was originally a wooden candle base I already had. I repurposed it as a sign holder and used my Cricut to create a double-sided sign featuring my Crazy 4 Castors logo and the IOD logo.

At this point, my collection of unrelated secondhand pieces was finally starting to look like one cohesive display.

Time to Add the Merchandise!

Then came the fun part.

Once I started hanging IOD products on the shutters, I knew the idea was going to work.

The slats gave me lots of hanging positions, the shelves provided places for smaller items and signage, and the rotating/movable footprint allowed me to merchandise vertically rather than spreading products across another table or wall.

What began as a $5 printer cart I bought mostly because I liked its castors had become a dedicated IOD merchandising fixture.

Back to the Booth

The finished display eventually made its way back to the same antique mall where the shutters first began their second life.

And this is probably my favorite part of the entire project: it doesn't take up much room.

Vendor booth real estate is precious. Going vertical gave me a prominent place to feature new IOD merchandise without giving up an entire wall or adding another large piece of furniture.

It also looks like it belongs in my booth. The black base and shelves tie into my other black display pieces, while leaving the original aged shutter finish visible gives it the vintage character I love.

The Final Cost? About $12

Technically, the printer cart originally cost me $5 and the four decorative wood pieces cost $1—but both had already been sitting in my stash waiting for their eventual purpose.

For this particular project, the only thing I actually had to go out and purchase was approximately $12 worth of flower pot hooks.

The shutters were thrifted.
The printer cart was yard-saled.
The wooden shelf pieces were yard-saled.
The sign base came from my basement.
And the sign itself was made with my Cricut.

This is exactly why I have such a hard time walking away from an interesting thrifted piece just because I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet.

Sometimes the project doesn't reveal itself until much later.

And sometimes that $5 thing you bought for the castors turns out to be exactly what you needed.