Recycled wine barrels and other goodies

Wine barrel kitchen island and stool

My downstairs neighbor sells stuff on the Internet. Her main product is a wool leg warmer; she sells them as fast as she can knit them. But she has a great eye for other people's discards. Her husband found a wine barrel on the street and called her and she said, "I can sell that." Turns out somebody paid $120 for it, not including shipping, within 24 hours. For something she found on the street. Wow.

She told me this story the same day I agreed to write this sponsored post for Uncommon Goods, and it makes me feel good about doing it, because the items I find the coolest in the company's catalog are the goods made from recycled barrels. Maybe I should have asked for review samples instead of money: there's a couple of things here I'd like to have.

I love the wine barrel kitchen island above, for example. Unfortunately my kitchen isn't big enough to accommodate it, and yes I'm being paid to write this, but come on, that's cool.

The one I should have asked for is the recycled wine barrel side table ($380) at left. I'd be happy to have that. You can find both of those items in the "wine decor" section here. There's also an interesting recycled wine bottle platter -- a squashed wine bottle that you can serve cheese on -- for $16.99.

There's also a huge selection of glassware, which can be a fragile subject among wine lovers. I'm neutral to most of it, but the "major scale musical wine glasses" are intriguing. There are lines printed on the glasses that correspond to an A major scale. Fill the glass with wine to the line marked "F#," rub a wet finger around the rim, and the glass is supposed to play that musical note. How long would it take to master a piece of music played on wine glasses? Buy the glasses here and start practicing.

This is a sponsored post. Duh.

And what can you play on this glassware, other than "Smoke on the Water" and the theme from the Adam West "Batman" show?

It turns out A major is the simplest key for violins, and students often start with it. Beethoven wrote his Symphony No. 7 in it; Mozart used it for three concertos and a symphony. German poet Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart said A major is suitable for "declarations of innocent love, ... hope of seeing one's beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God." That's exactly what I want my wine glasses to sound like when rubbed with a wet finger!

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