• but of course not in the boring standard sense of the term: I like repurposing stuff. Here are some examples.

Ages ago I built an LCD+IR control head for my bedside stereo, and initially housed it in a recycled plastic floppy box. Not exactly what you'd call an aesthetically pleasant arrangement but it worked fine. Later on Conny and I built a new bed which features a new lighting arrangement: cheap Ikea Kvart lamps with flexible arms that proved to work very well. So I rebuilt one extra Kvart and a small project box into this new, much shinier and better housing for the control head.

Another example: I've got a small dishwasher in my kitchen. It's a cheap small unit with a window (no idea why they designed it that way), and because this is an eremitic solo household it's sufficient. After about seven years of use the window broke: the inner plastic cracked near the mounting lugs and started to leak.

First I tried replacing the window with a sheet of 4mm Lexan, but I totally underestimated the differential thermal expansion of Lexan vs. sheet metal. The lexan started cracking pretty much immediately.

Take two: This time I decided that watching my dishes being washed isn't exciting or important, and thus used sheet metal - for which I cut up an old computer case. The result looks a bit like bad steampunk and I.K. Brunel would have recognized the style, but it works :-)