ReStoring our house

I honestly believe that Habitat for Humanity's ReStores are the greatest store to ever come to St. Joseph County. As much as I'd love an Ikea or Whole Foods, the two ReStores in our area have saved us a TON of money and are much more useful to our style of life (aka: cheap and low-impact).

Today Shayne and I ventured to the Mishawaka store, which is about twice the size of the South Bend one. I was looking for tongue-and-groove pine flooring, which is very difficult to find around here. I also wanted to check out bathtubs. They had 514 square feet of oak T&G, but no pine. And only cheapo tubs. But we did find an upper corner cabinet that, with a little work, will fit right in with the original kitchen cabinets. The size is right, and the cabinet box isn't particle board with a laminate. Do you know how hard it is to find a plywood cabinet box anymore? The door doesn't match at all, but it's just a slab, so we might be able to route it to match the originals. The custom cabinet guy wants ~$400 for the same thing. We paid $45, and we'll just have to replace the back plywood panel, since the cabinet was originally on a penninsula and has doors on two sides.

We also found about 6.75' of T&G unpainted pine beadboard, which is enough to give the kitchen a new wainscot. Normally beadboard is about $3 per linear foot; we got it for $.50 per 3 foot section.

Other great finds have been pine flooring, a pine prairie-style front door with 9 beveled lites (pics to come soon), a lamp for my mom, and lots of little odds and ends. They always have a huge selection of doors, sinks, toilets, and paint.

I'm so glad we have the ReStore. We get awesome salvaged materials, and our money helps out a great organization. Now if only we had somewhere to stash this stuff until we're ready to use it...