No doubt, many thoughtful children gifted their mothers heartfelt floral bouquets this past Mother’s Day.
However, Imgur user maker1706 took his flowers to an entirely new level, gifting the mother of his children her arrangement in a handcrafted wooden vase, upcycled — amazingly enough — out of their old knife block.
The couple had purchased this knife block a while back, and had over the years, acquired additional knives — warranting an ungraded storage solution.
True upcycler that he is, though, this husband saw opportunity in this old knife block, and immediately began working his DIY magic.
A crafty DIY-er can make a vase out of all sorts of different materials. This DIY-er repurposed an old household item his family had grown out of into a beautiful statement piece they'll likely pass down from generation to generation.
Keep scrolling through our gallery to learn exactly how this inventive upcycler transformed this knife block into a beautiful new piece of home decor.
This past Mother’s Day, Imgur user maker1706 decided that the mother of his children's hard work deserved more praise than a simple bouquet of flowers could provide.
He instead handcrafted his wife a one-of-a-kind vase, upcycled from their old knife block.
The couple had used this knife block for years, but had over time collected more knives than this particular storage solution could manage.
While they'd agreed to upgrade, they hadn't necessarily decided on what to do with the old block.
That's when this DIY-er's inspiration struck.
As a knife block, the wooden structure boasted many holes. Transforming it into one vase as is wasn’t necessarily innately conducive to becoming a solid structure.
He'd need the structure to be solid, and decided to use blue-colored epoxy to fill each of the knife block's holes.
He tried to seal the bottom of the knife block with tape, to ensure the epoxy would dry inside the block’s divots.
However, once he returned to check on the project the following day, the epoxy had defied his tape barrier, and ran out all over the table.
He refilled each of the crevasses with more epoxy, as needed.
Once the epoxy hardened, this DIY-er used his bandsaw to separate the scissors stand from the core knife block.
Now, this knife block was ready for its most startling transformation: reshaping.
This DIY-er mounted his knife block onto a lathe, and began rounding the block’s corners.
Reflecting back on the project, this DIY-er realized that he’d spent an unnecessarily long amount of time rounding this block’s corners with his lathe.
He recommended that future DIY-ers preemptively remove the block’s corners with a bandsaw, so as to avoid letting the lathe consume too much valuable time.
Using a forester bit, he carefully hollowed out his new vase, wide enough to fit his wife's beautiful bouquet.
Next, he reshaped the vase a bit, to give it next-level dimension.
While the wood itself was quite lovely, adding the epoxy helped tie the whole vase together.
Once his vase had taken a lovely new shape, this DIY-er sanded its surface extensively.
Smeared with beeswax, for a glossy finish, you'd never guess that this vase used to be a knife block.
Beautifully enough, whilst whittling away at this old knife block, this DIY-er uncovered a dark, walnut-colored stripe running along the knife block’s inside: a lovely and interesting surprise!
Not only does this knife block vase look gorgeous, but it carries with it memories of how this family's household has grown over the years.
Instead of discarding all of those memories, this husband chose to preserve them in his repurposed gem of a project.
This upcycler celebrated his wife on Mother’s Day by turning their seemingly useless old knife block into a gorgeous vase.
What do you think about this beautiful vase? Have you ever upcycled an old knife block? Tell us about your project in the comments.
Please SHARE this awesome DIY project with other upcyclers in your community!
