The holiday season is officially over (sigh!), and besides a sad-looking fir tree, you might be hoarding a rich supply of empty bottles right around now. To do something more creative than recycling all those dead soldiers, you might take some inspiration from Niagara County couple Kitty Ulrick and Kevin Worosz.
The Western New York couple came up with an ingenious, artistic use for more than 3,000 empty wine, beer, and liquor bottles: they turned them into a colorful backyard shed.
Speaking to WGRZ, Ulrick said she came up with the idea while drinking a glass of wine with her son, who was enjoying a beer from a colorful blue bottle. Inspired by how attractive it was, Ulrick considered using empty bottles for a DIY project.
The couple settled on plans for a 10-feet-by-12-feet outbuilding, incorporating 3,688 bottles into its design. The project took a year to complete.
Along with the substantial labor of building the structure, the couple said the hardest part was cleaning the bottles and removing their labels, which they did in a hot, soapy bath with vinegar. But not any old bottle would do. The carefully-planned design also used specific colored bottles to create two stained-glass style scenes: one inspired by a Caribbean beach, the other representing a large tree.
In case you’re worried about the toll on their health while trying to amass such a quantity, you’ll be happy to hear they had help from friends and family, as well as local wineries, restaurants, and bars. Now that’s the holiday spirit.
