Salvage Savvy These sisters do more than talk trash – they see the beautiful potential in castaway things

In an oft-quoted “Seinfeld” episode, George Costanza declared: “I’d drape myself in velvet if it were socially acceptable.”

Kathleen Hackett and Mary Ann Young, authors of “The Salvage Sisters’ Guide to Finding Style in the Street and Inspiration in the Attic” ($14.95, Artisan), would choose something a little less posh.

“We do love newspaper,” Young said by phone from Pittsburgh – the sixth of a 20-city book tour. “We’d upholster our sofas in it if we could.”

Ink-stained khakis aren’t their style, however. Instead, they’ve used newsprint to fashion Jackie O-style head scarves, trim a Christmas tree, make a unique wreath and jazz up a “too stuffy” mirror – four of 50 projects in their book.

The Salvage Sisters aren’t about turning trash into treasure, per se. Their attics aren’t filled with junk picked up in a late-night dump raid, nor are their living rooms decorated with yard sale mistakes. They take well-edited finds and give them a unique twist.

“The funny thing is it’s really not about the stuff as much as the mental makeover we give things. … It’s really about the rejuvenation of the things that might be left to the trash,” said Young, who lives in Rockport. “We like the process. My sister and I like to think we give it our Salvage Sisters spin, our artistic eye.”

Young and Hackett, who divides her time between Brooklyn, N.Y., and Camden, both have backgrounds in publishing. Their work has appeared in Martha Stewart Living, Budget Living, Better Homes & Gardens and Country Living. Hackett, 40, has written lifestyle books for Pottery Barn and Budget Living magazine and Young, 46, wrote “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Decorating Your Home” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Needlework.”

The Salvage Sisters write the articles and style the photo shoots that inspire many people’s home d?cor. Their own inspiration comes from their mother, Jean Hackett, 78, who raised nine children, infused every day with whimsy and “treated rust as a neutral color that went with everything.”

“We started when we were very young,” Young said. “Our mom is the reason for us to be able to see the beauty in every day. She sees the potential in everything. She’s our hero, really.”

Their vision and style may have came from mom, but many of their ideas are one-of-a-kind. Take the dog sweater on Young’s Jack Russell terrier. It was crafted from the sleeve of a not-quite-right cashmere sweater languishing in the back of Hackett’s closet. The sisters cut out leg holes, embroidered Jack’s name on the side and – voila! – canine chic.

“We try to make castoffs very cool,” Young said.

For the sisters, it’s all about what something could be, not necessarily what it is. A weathered oar becomes a cool stair railing. Orphaned drawers, mounted to a wall, become an artful set of bookcases. Old curtains, a la Maria von Trapp, become stylish duds for the whole family – dresses for Young and her daughter, Mary Jane, a bow tie for her husband, Tom, and shorts for her son, Tom Tom. Hackett wears a long skirt with an unfinished hem, her husband, Stephen models a long tie, and their baby son, Finn, sports a stylish diaper cover.

“He’s our favorite little prop,” Young said, laughing.

Their style is very low-maintenance, very laid-back. They embrace imperfection and reject convention. Their finds may be humble, such as a piece of driftwood or a mussel shell, but the results rarely are.

“It’s very serendipitous. It’s really more fun that way,” Young said. “We do a lot of tongue-in-cheek stuff, as you can tell.”

She’s referring to a Gap trench coat lined with hot pink silk flowers, but she could very well mean the wreath of magenta pompom fringe and pea-green pompom topiaries that accent an austere marble mantel. Or the tulle skirt of a Goodwill ball gown turned into a table skirt.

“We see the possibilities in just about everything,” Young said. “There’s nothing we dismiss.”

Including the falling-down Greek Revival in Rockport that Mary Ann and Tom Young rescued. They dubbed it “The House that Nobody Wanted,” but they knew it was a keeper. Sure, the back of the house had to be dismantled, but that didn’t deter the couple.

“It was pretty bad,” Mary Ann said. “But we saw the beauty of it every time we drove by. It had good bones, good lines and a great location.”

Mary Ann and Kathleen are true New Englanders, and they know a good thing when they see it. Growing up in Vermont, they were exposed to the creative reuse of everyday items. But they’ve added their own stylish touch to the mix.

“We like to think of our book as Yankee ingenuity meets joie de vivre,” Young said.

The duo recently filmed a pilot for a Salvage Sisters television series and they’ve already started work on the book’s sequel, due out in 2007.

Young and Hackett understand not everyone has a knack for salvage style. For would-be salvage sisters, Young has a few words of advice: Give things a different look. Don’t just pass things off. Open your eyes. Look around. Turn to art galleries, movie sets and books for ideas (“The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” exhibit at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art inspired Young to fashion a quilt from her family’s old jeans and shirts). Most important, don’t take anything too seriously.

“We’re very relaxed,” Young said. “We take a relaxed approach to just about everything. We are just having a good time.”

Kristen Andresen can be reached at 990-8287 and kandresen@bangordailynews.net.