When my wife and I rearranged our home office last weekend, it neatened up our workstations nicely and will hopefully position our huge, somewhat ailing peace lily where it can better thrive. But it also left one side of my desk shrouded in shadow. What to do, what to do… Wait, I have a box of random, unused motorcycle lights in the garage. A quick trip to the motorcycle parts shelves located this Harley-Davidson LED license light. Perfect! The addition of a 12V wall wart from an old cordless phone, a scavenged toggle switch, and some double-sided foam tape, and I had the perfect hidden accent light for zero cost and ten minutes of effort.
What is the coolest, most hacktastic way you’ve ever re-purposed a vehicle part?
Harley license light proves THIS is why we keep boxes full of random spare parts.
By Peter Tanshanomi
Feb 5, 2015
By Peter Tanshanomi
Tanshanomi is Japanese [単車のみ] for "motorcycle(s) only." Though primarily tasked with creating two-wheel oriented content for Hooniverse, Pete is a lover of all sorts of motorized vehicles.
Jeff Glucker 
RoadworkUK
When I rig something up out of spare parts, my wife always points out, "the fact that you end up using all this crap sometime does not mean that you are not a hoarder." That said, the flow of spare items in my household has generally been to cars instead of off of them.
When I was in grad school, I did occasionally use a car antenna as a pointer for seminars.
My best answer to the reverse of your question is using a photoresistor I removed from a VCR in the 1990s to repair the ambient light sensor in my Buick. That little part had been moved a half dozen times–one time across the country–before I finally used it 15 years later.
I still have a Rover 800 tail-light that I'm desperate to turn into a desk lamp. Only thing stopping me is the "over my dead body" factor of my better half accepting my introducing bits of car into our decor.
I'm still using nuts and bolts left over from an MGB head swap I did in 1991.
Hmm… As soon as I get home I'm going to poke around and find a little light to do exactly this!
<img src ="http://i.imgur.com/jXFbI73.gif">
Any mention of peace lily just makes me think of Hot Fuzz
[youtube 7hzCk7-cZlU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hzCk7-cZlU youtube]
I'm a frequent abuser of the 'car part as decor' principle. The VW Beetle decklid wall sconce and the Model T rear window photo frame are two of the more recent offenses
<img src="http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g125/feelmyapathy/20140824_174520_zpsaecf48c2.jpg">
<img src="http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g125/feelmyapathy/ModelTFrame1_zpsb6dd98e6.jpg">
Bicentennial Missouri license plate! Woohoo!