Skateboard Furniture - the ultimate in recycling

Skateboards get busted all the time. It's sad, but true. You buy a sweet new deck, with some sick graphics, and the first thing you do is grind off the picture, and then bend the board under the weight of you landing tricks, and smack the board into curbs or rails until the deck finally breaks. Some skaters go through a deck a month. Pro skaters kill decks in a matter of a couple of days when they're filming for a video. The simple truth is, decks are doomed.

In my hometown, skaters like to hang their broken decks from a large tree next to the skatepark. It looks creepy, and beautiful.

A lot of old broken decks just get thrown away, but if you're like me, you have a few old decks lying around. They aren't good for skateboarding anymore, but for some reason, you don't want to toss 'em in the ol' wood chipper just yet. That deck is still important. It's scarred and ugly, but those are scars you gave it. You could hang them on the wall, or just keep 'em in the garage with other memories, but here's another idea - make them into furniture.

I've seen people doing this for years now, and it can be pretty cool. I remember back like 6 years ago, a skater friend of mine's girlfriend make his old decks into a bookshelf for his birthday. He was stoked! Decks can be re-made into tons of things, from wall shelves to stools to benches (see J Ryde Visuals for some great ideas, or to hire him to make something). You can also do some more swanky stuff, like Skate Study House's lamps, tables, clocks, coat racks and more. A lot of these can be seen in a sweet collage by Skateboard Park.com.

Have you ever recycled your old decks or other skate gear into art, furniture, or something else? Leave a comment below and tell us about it!