Reuse, Recycle & Repurpose Old Snowboard and Ski Gear

Is it just me or is there a resurgence of the DIY movement towards reusing stuff you have to make even cooler stuff? Growing up, I watched a lot of HGTV and Trading Spaces, but right now, it truly seems like there is a more widespread fever for Martha Stewart-esque craftiness. Perhaps its the rising popularity of Pinterest, with its emphasis on staged home decor? By the way, you know you have been bitten by the bug if you have organized your books on bookshelves by COLOR to create an aesthetically-pleasing arrangement.

In the Liftopia offices, we have a lot of old-school vintage, late 80s, and 90s skis lying around. Some are staged in pleasing arrangements around the office. Others just kind of hang out while they wait their turn to be made into shotskis. There’s also a quasi-trading arrangement going on, where someone’s old gear is given to a new skier skier to use before they decide to make the investment of purchasing their own ski gear. That’s about the extent we go to at Liftopia to repurpose our old gear. BUT, there are so, so, so soooo many more possibilities for turning our old cool stuff into even cooler, kinda-new stuff!

If you, too, are wondering what to do with your old skis (especially those dangerous 80s ones) or old ski goggles, behold, here’s a list to inspire and help you out:

1. Re-use your old ski goggles for festivals in the desert, like Burning Man or EDC. It’s a bit of a given that anything you bring to Burning Man, or any other festival that happens to be held in the desert, is probably not going to survive. Dust has a way of getting into the nooks and crannies of gear and stuff that sometimes you just have to throw up your hands and let it go. So, before you relegate your old ski/board goggles to the back of your old gear pile, consider using them as eye protection against the UV rays, bright lights, and sand storms in the playa. There’s also nothing quite like having amber- or rose-colored vision while watching/listening to Skrillex dropping the beats.

2. Create a coat rack with your ski(s). From the easy one-ski coat rack which requires only a few hooks to be attached to the more complicated standing coat rack, you can use your skis to hang your winter gear or everyday coats. One couple even used their vintage skis as the guestbooks for their wedding before magically putting them together as a standing coat rack.

3. If you have many, many skis, consider creating a ski chair in the Adirondack fashion. This piece of furniture looks just as good with modern skis as with vintage wood ones. There’s even a snowboard version!

4. Accompany that Adirondack ski chair with a side table or coffee table. You’re going to need someplace to hold your tea, coffee, wine, champagne, whiskey shots, etc. while lounging in your sweet ski chairs. There’s a couple variations on the table mode of skis, but most of them use old skis as the legs, too.

5. Turn those ski poles into the base of your next, custom-made standing lamp. Admit it, it looks cool.

6. If you have a candle obsession, you’ll like the idea of turning an old ski into a votive candleholder. Because a person can never have too many candles.

7. Turn your skis into a picture frame shelf. All that’s needed are short shelf brackets, and wallah, you’ve got a neat way to display all your awesome ski & snowboard-trick photos along with the requisite family & friends photos.

8. While not so realistic, one enterprising individual created a FENCE with old, unused skis. You, too, could have a ski fence!

9. Stand or cross them as home decor against a wall. Since we’re not all carpenter-ly inclined or even handy with power tools, this option would be the easiest. It’s also one we use liberally throughout the Liftopia offices. Not only does it require the least amount of effort, it also is (sometimes) a quick win in interior design sartorialness.

10. Make a shot ski. This is undoubtedly our favorite reuse of old gear for a number of reasons. It’s a crowd-pleaser, a crowd-wower, and will continue to facilitate good times over and over again. It’s a multi-functional piece of hardware that can also stand again a wall and look like home decor.

There you have it! Beyond the normal stuff we think of when reusing gear, like donating to Goodwill, Salvation Army or the local thrift store, or giving away to friends/family, these options are definitely meant to get your gears spinning in creative re-use of old ski and snowboard stuff. Check out our Repurposing Your Gear board on Pinterest to get some more inspiration!