My Mom would think it funny that they call it "repurposing" now. She was a child of the depression, and they repurposed EVERYthing. She washed bread bags.

If you threw away an egg carton, a cottage cheese container, an onion bag, a perfectly good piece of aluminum foil, a thread spool, a twist tie, etc., you were in deep puppy chow. It could be USED for something.

My Dad came by some kind of giant wooden spool that phone wire or something came on. It was his "patio" table. (Not that they had a patio)