How to Incorporate Rustic Bike Decor

Bicycles: They’ve been around for hundreds of years, and bike designs have changed and evolved time and time again. If you have a classic model lying around rusting because it’s too old to ride, don’t fret. The charm and beauty of your old antique bike can serve another function — home décor!

While you may not have ever considered the idea, bikes are gaining popularity as art. They’re being repurposed to adorn walls, add charm to gardens and even serve as unique furniture! Since May is National Bike Month, here are some ideas for decorating your home using rustic bikes and spare parts!

Garden Décor

You may have collected pieces of old bikes left lying around outside, rusting in trash heaps, or forgotten in musty garages. Incorporating them into natural outdoor spaces is a great way to add some industrial beauty to your garden.

There are an endless number of ways to do this, but one of the coolest is to take a whole or partial bicycle, adorn it with a basket and create a vintage planter. You can easily prop or chain your bike up against a fence and just let your flowers grow.

If you plan on growing a particular type of flower or using a colorful planter, you can go a step farther and paint over your potentially rusty bike — although the rust can add to the charm of your piece if you want to keep it visible.

Another great garden decoration is a pinwheel. Bike wheels can be modified to create a variety of pinwheel styles, but a particularly cool one is this stained glass spinner. It will take a while to create, but the finished product is worth it! Fit the spokes of your wheel with cuts of stained glass and solder them to the insides for this piece.

For the Kitchen

Bike rims get several mentions here for their versatility — another great use for them is in the kitchen.

If you’re shopping for a rack for your pots and pans, you may be surprised at how expensive some can be. If you’re looking to save some money and still have a stylish modern design, turn to your old rims for inspiration.

The wheel of the bike remains completely intact with this pot rack design, spinning at the center so that you can easily access your pots by rotating the rack. Just fix some hooks along the outside edge of the rim and you can hang all of your kitchen tools on them!

Versatile Wall Hangings

Many parts of a bike can be turned into excellent art pieces to adorn your walls, both indoors and out.

One that combines both form and function is a handlebar hanger. The curved shape of “drop” handlebars can provide support to hang not only your bike but coats, towels, frames, and just about anything! All you need are some additional common hardware items to craft your hanger.

Another functional design utilizes the wheel of your old bike. Clean up some antique rims — even paint them if you like — and mount them to a wall or fence. The spokes provide a space for you to attach photographs, string lights, or let plants grow. Better yet, you can fix a mirror in the center!

Another cool use for antique bike rims: a clock. You can purchase clock kits with the necessary machinery and clock hands. Or, you can simply dismantle an existing clock depending on the size of the clock you’re trying to build.

While the wheel is the more obvious route for clock design, you can get even more complex and fix your clock mechanism to an old bike chain. You’ll have to be a bit more tech-savvy for this design, but the finished product is well worth it.

Cool Furniture

If you’re especially handy, why go out and buy furniture? There’s no need if you can just build it yourself! Better yet, if you can get your hands on any recycled bike parts, your home furnishing possibilities are pretty limitless.

Do you happen to have an entire bike still in one piece? You could go all out and transform your entire bathroom sink — complete with a basket to hold your towels and soaps!

Are you working with bits and pieces of old bikes instead? You can try your hand at building something like a small side table for your bedroom or living room.

The advantage of incorporating a bike into your table is that a bike is also a machine. This table design takes advantage of that fact. The circular shape of the wheel makes for perfect tabletop support and also spins like a Lazy Susan! It even utilizes other bike parts like the legs, namely three equally-sized bike forks that add even more rustic charm to the piece.

There is so much you can create for your home using old bike parts, and these suggestions only scratch the surface. Have fun recycling and upcycling your old bicycles!