Garden planters
Lined, painted, drilled for drainage. Popular with community gardens, neighborhood schools and urban balconies. Lasts one full growing season, then recycles with the rest of your yard waste.
Pop-up displays
Modular, wheatpaste-printable, free-standing corrugated furniture for trade shows, pop-up shops and art fairs. Flat-packs to ship, folds up in 90 seconds.
Storage cubes
Open-top 18" cubes for garages, maker spaces and studio closets. Sold in sets of six, in three stock colors plus natural kraft.
Prototype packaging
Product designers love us because we can cut 10 prototypes in a day instead of waiting three weeks for a die-line from a big mill. Bring us a sketch, walk out with test boxes.
Event builds
Halloween haunted houses, school plays, trade show booths — we’ve built backdrops out of gaylords for all of them. One-off work, quoted by the job.
The occasional phone booth
Don’t ask. It’s still in our office.
Got a wild idea?
Send us the sketch and the quantity. If we can cut it out of a retired gaylord, we’ll quote it. We like the weird requests.
Why we keep doing the upcycle work.
Upcycled goods are the smallest line item in our revenue breakdown and the most consistently fun. Every retired gaylord that becomes a planter or a display module is a box that technically should have been baled — but instead it gets one more tour as something useful in a community space, a storefront, an art installation, or an industrial design studio. The margins are thin and the work is unpredictable, but it keeps the team interested and it generates the occasional photo we can put on our blog.
Pricing for upcycled work.
Quoted by the project. A simple set of 6 storage cubes runs $40 to $80 depending on size and color. A modular display unit for a trade show booth runs $300 to $1,200 depending on complexity. Custom event builds (theatre sets, art installations, pop-up retail) are quoted hourly plus materials, typically $80 to $200 per hour of design and cutting time.
Materials we cut from.
- Retired triplewall gaylords. Heaviest, most rigid material. Best for furniture and load-bearing builds.
- Doublewall offcuts. Cheaper and lighter. Best for prototype packaging and light displays.
- New corrugated sheet stock. When a project requires uniform appearance, we’ll source new from a partner mill.
Project examples we’ve done.
- Garden planters for three Denver Public Schools community gardens.
- A modular trade-show booth for an outdoor brand at the Outdoor Retailer show.
- Set pieces for a community theatre production of “Our Town.”
- Fifty corrugated “phone booths” (technically just enclosed cubes) for a tech conference.
- A series of acoustic wall panels for a yoga studio in RiNo.
- A 6-foot tall “tree” built from layered corrugated for a children’s book launch event.
- Prototype packaging for a Boulder startup launching a kitchen gadget.
Upcycled FAQ.
Can you ship upcycled goods nationwide?
Yes, but freight is the limiting factor. Cardboard furniture is bulky and light, which is the worst combination for shipping. Most of our upcycled work goes to local Denver customers who can pick up at the yard.
Will it last more than one season?
Depends on the application. Indoor goods can last years. Outdoor planters last one growing season before the corrugated breaks down. We’re honest about the lifespan in every quote.
Can I bring my own design?
Yes — bring a sketch or a CAD file and we’ll quote materials and cutting time. Most of our upcycle clients bring designs from their own studios.
Do you work with schools or non-profits at a discount?
Yes — we do community pricing for schools, libraries and non-profits, and we donate materials for community garden projects when supply allows.