Green House Update Strategies

For the past 5 or so months, H and I have been waist deep in the throes of renovation on our house.  We’ve made a ton of changes to the place, and things have started to move at a slower pace (boo) but have come ages from where we started.  When the person you buy your house from is 92, there’s not really much of her ‘style’ that you want to keep.  O

Of course, with all of the updates that we have done, H and I have generated a lot of ‘construction debris’ AKA waste.  Mostly, the waste is things that are not really worth much to anyone anymore for whatever reason.  However, there have been a few things that we’ve pulled out that while not exactly our taste, still work fine and are not ruined.  Specific examples include the drapes, curtains, kitchen appliances, kitchen cabinets, kitchen sink, bathroom sink and vanity, and more.  I just couldnt stand to cart this stuff off to the landfill (even though it is free to dump there…dont get me started), so I started to think about a few ways to re-use or breathe a second life into all of this stuff.

The first thing I did was decide what I had a use for around the house.  There are 2 outbuildings on our property, and they  were essentially bare.  One of the outbuildings has made a great spot for the cabinets that we were able to salvage out of the kitchen – the cabinets wont cover every inch of the wall and floor, but they will give me some storage space when needed.  All it took was a little bit of plywood screwed on to the back for stabilization, and the cabinets were ready to be back in service.  Unfortunately, I was unable to keep them all as some had gotten too busted up during removal to salvage.

After I looked for a way to simply re-use the pieces as they were, I next tried to look at a way that I could use a portion of the material that was extracted in a way that the creator didnt intend, but would still work for me.  Most of this ended up being scrap wood that has been used for various project during reconstruction, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to make a papercrete mold with what I’ve got left.

Even after this semi salvage attempt, there was still a great deal of stuff that we thought was terribly ugly, had no space for or just plain old didnt want.  While researching what to do with all of this stuff we deemed ‘junk’ I found out about the Re-Store, which is run by habitat for humanity.  They take all construction debris and process it, then re-sell it at the store.  Not only do they take used building supply, major chains also donate new building supplies to the store.  It’s a pretty awesome place, and we have made quite a few trips over there during the process.  We’ve given them countless light fixtures, a bathroom sink and vanity, a kitchen sink, a few cieling fans, and much more.  The store has everything there too, and while I didnt pull the trigger, I almost became a customer of the re-store when we were there.

I was shocked at how big the re-store in my town was, and there was 2 other very large ones a few hours drive away – they seem to do a brisk business.  I think the re-store is a great place to bring some of your old construction supplies, or even get some things for your house that you’d like to replace for super cheap.  The best part about the store though, was that al of the time and energy that went into the pieces that H and I no longer wanted but still worked fine didnt have to get tossed into the landfill, taking up space for something that actually was garbage.  Finally, it’s a great spot for budget shoppers – everything there was fairly cheap!

Readers:  Have you ever heard of the re-store?  If you have heard of it, have you ever dropped something off or bought something there, and if you have not heard of it, would you consider using it during your next project?  Is there anything like this in your area that’s unaffiliated with the restore?

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