What Do You Get When You Upcycle An Old Public Toilet?
Meet Russell Mahoney, the Southill gas engineer turned upcycler who builds his shop's stock out of exactly the things everyone else throws away.
Most people who spend 46 years fixing boilers and pipework for a living stick to fixing boilers and pipework. Russell Mahoney had other ideas.
Who Are Outhouse Creative Upcycling?
Outhouse Creative Upcycling is Russell's workshop and shop in Southill, Weymouth — a one-man operation built on the idea that the wood, glass, metal and mechanical bits everyone else skips still have a job left in them. The name isn't just a play on words: the building itself used to be a public toilet block, upcycled into a shop.
Russell's own sign on the wall puts it better than we could — "our world is so wasteful in things we throw away unnecessarily," he writes, and the Outhouse is his answer to it.
Russell in the shop, wearing his Outhouse polo shirt
Russell is still a working gas engineer and plumber — you'll find him running Mahoney Heating and Plumbing (Gas Safe Reg. 20135), serving Weymouth and the surrounding villages.
Alongside the day job, he's turned a lifelong habit of "making and finding unusual things" into a proper workshop. Every shelf in the place is stocked with things that had a first life as something else entirely — and a second life that's usually more interesting.
What He Actually Makes
Walk into the Outhouse and the shelves tell the story better than any product list. Old 45s and 7-inch singles become working wall clocks, hands mounted straight through the label — round £17 each, and no two are the same because no two records are the same.
wall of vinyl record clocks
Bike chains become bracelets — minus the oil and grease! — hanging in rows at £7–£10. It's the sort of upcycling that makes you look twice: something that was headed for a skip in a bike shop, now on someone's wrist.
Bike chain bracelets
Then there's the bigger custom work: a vintage gramophone case, rebuilt with a Bluetooth receiver and speaker fitted inside so it plays records the old way and your phone the new way — one of Russell's showpiece commissions.
Upcycled gramophone with Bluetooth speaker
Lighting is the same story told in copper pipe, brass fittings and old gauges — steampunk-style lamps built from genuine reclaimed plumbing and heating parts, which, given Russell's day job, makes a lot of sense. Alongside them: framed prints, quirky signage, old projectors rewired into lamps, and anything else that catches his eye at the tip before it goes in the ground.
Shelving with lamps, clocks, prints and signage
Why This Matters To Us At UIL
Upcycle Interiors Ltd (UIL) didn't pick our name by accident. Reduce, reuse, recycle sits behind everything we do on a Period Property Preservation job — patina is the story a building has to tell, and we'd always rather restore what's there than rip it out and start again. Russell applies exactly the same thinking at the other end of the scale: the wood, glass, metal and mechanical parts that would otherwise end up in a skip or, in his words, "a big hole."
“Our world is so wasteful in things we throw away unnecessarily — Russell just refuses to pretend it isn’t there.”
We're a fully licensed waste carrier ourselves (upper tier licence CBDU400611), so we see firsthand how much genuinely reusable material gets thrown away across Weymouth, Portland and Dorchester — and everywhere in between, from Preston and Osmington to Bincombe, Ringstead and Abbotsbury.
Having a trusted local outlet for the pieces worth saving — rather than the tip — is exactly the kind of partner UIL wants to point clients toward. It's why you'll find Outhouse Creative Upcycling, alongside our other trusted partners, at
https://www.upcycleinteriors.co.uk/trusted-partners
If you're renovating and want a genuinely one-off feature — a light, a clock, a bespoke piece built from materials that already have a story — Russell is who we'd send you to.
“Some of the best finds in Weymouth started life as rubbish. Russell just got there first.”
Mark & the UIL team
Get In Touch
✨ Ready to bring your project to life? At Upcycle Interiors, we combine professionalism, trustworthiness, and reliability to deliver results you can count on. Whether it's a small repair or a full renovation, we'll treat your home with the care and respect it deserves.
For fuss-free fixing and finishing, contact us on:
🌐 www.upcycleinteriors.co.uk/contact
📧 sales@upcycleinteriors.co.uk
📞 01305 584459
📍 Based in Weymouth and covering all of South Dorset including DT1, DT2 (part), DT3, DT4, DT5, DT6 (part). Please do get in touch here if your area is not on the list.
Upcycle Interiors Limited — professional, trustworthy, reliable.
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References
[1] Outhouse Creative Upcycling — https://www.outhousecreativeup.com/
[2] Outhouse Creative Upcycling on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567152016922
[3] Outhouse Creative Upcycling on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/outhouse_creative_upcycling/
