I was driving around at work a few days ago and noticed that there was a company clearing trees around a few abandoned houses. Correctly assuming that this meant the houses would be demolished, I stopped and asked the driver of an excavator (who was conveniently the company owner) if I could check around the house for any woodwork, windows, or the like that I could salvage. He said it was no problem, and to just let him know what I might like.
The house was something of a mess, and almost all of the woodwork, windows, and flooring were water damaged. The cabinets were falling apart, though they looked to have been cute once-upon-a-time. But then I walked into the bathroom and saw a nice, deep, old tub, just like the one in my mom's house.
I went back and talked to the company owner again, and he agreed that we could have the tub. I then mentioned that I had no way of getting it out myself; I was obviously working, and my husband was at home watching our baby. Since the house was being demo-ed the next morning, I didn't see any way to remove it. He (very generously!) said that his crew would take it out and set it off to the side for us. Awesome! He also mentioned that they were contracted to demolish a duplex in Mishawaka, and would we like to look at it before they took it down? You bet we would! He said there were old kitchen cabinets, woodwork, doors, and windows in it. He took my phone number and said he'd call me when they were a little closer to the demolition day.
I'm going to stop back by the destruction site today and offer him some cash for his time and effort. Cast iron doesn't have a high scrap value, so I'm confident it will be more than he would have gotten for the tub at a scrap yard. I'm hoping that maybe we can establish a good working relationship, and maybe we'll call us before he works on any old house.
Maybe my Aunt Virginia is right and I should have been a Sheeny Man instead of a cop (though I seem to be doing okay at both at the moment!)...
I'm still hoping that if/when we build our "new" house, that we can do it with as much recycled building material as possible. I don't want a new-looking home; I love the character and quality of old houses. It also saddens me that when old homes are demolished, so much usable building material is just wasted and tossed into a landfill. Maybe "sickens" is a better description. Our society and culture place such a high value on all things new, that I think people forget that there is nothing wrong with things that are old. Old things still work. Old things are much easily repaired by the layman. Old things often don't require electricity to do the same job. Many old things are crafted with much more attention to detail and with a higher standard of quality, and are often beautiful as well as useful.
I like old. I like knowing that other people have used and found joy in the same things I use. I like when items have a story to tell, or when I can tell a story about where I acquired them. It's so much more interesting than just going to the store and picking something out. I like knowing that I saved just one more thing from the landfill. Recycling isn't just for cans and bottles!
Showing posts with label salvage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salvage. Show all posts
3/31/2011
3/18/2011
Demolition auction score!
A few weeks ago, Indiana University at South Bend (IUSB) had a demolition auction of 30 houses that they were razing to make way for a parking lot. Almost all of the houses had been used for student housing before they build their current apartments, so they weren't in good shape from a historic standpoint. But there were some neat features and details that were auctioned off, including woodwork, built-ins, kitchen cabinets, plumbing, and flooring. I was unable to attend, due to my work schedule, but my wonderful mother went for me. She scored us a set of built-in cabinets ($165) and a house-full of woodwork ($25). She also networked with some salvagers who would be happy to sell us anything that they recovered.
Salvaging always makes me sad. I'm glad that we (or someone) is dismantling the houses so that the materials can be reused... But to see them torn down to make way for a slab of asphalt just seems silly. I could probably write an entire pity-party post, but I'll spare you all my mental anguish.
After a bit of furniture shuffling, we now have two new additions to our living room:
(Please excuse the grainy picture. The lighting this morning is not the greatest)
It would be ideal if they were twice as wide, but I think they look nice. To casual observation, you don't notice that they're not part of the room. I'd center them on either side of the window, but each cabinet has a hole on the side where the doorway woodwork is supposed to fit. I can just see our cat and baby thinking that they are the greatest new place to hide...
Here's to another bit of rescued house history!
3/04/2011
My salvaging experiment
We went in on Monday night to work on salvaging what materials we could from the little tudor bungalow. I had the help of two friends, my best friend's dad (AKA Dad), plus my oh-so-patient husband. We got a call from the demo company at about 4:15pm, then met at the house at 5.
My first surprise was that I had been expecting two days to work on the house, but the company told me that they were going to demo it on Tuesday morning. That gave us only 5-6 hours to grab what we could. I'm still upset that we couldn't get in sooner, since Shayne and I were both off on Sunday, and we could have gone in then. But oh well...
My first mistake was in not having a clear plan. I knew I wanted flooring, windows, and beadboard, but I didn't do a great job of organizing my labor. It took about 45 minutes for us to really get down to work pulling up the floor in the living room. Meanwhile, Dad grabbed a screen door, well pump, sump pump, a bathroom vanity and sink, and some other odds and ends. Obviously he wasn't wasting any time! Lesson learned.
I tried to get the beadboard from the kitchen, but had limited success. It was new, for one thing, and very thin. Since it was painted over, it just cracked and splintered when I tried to pry it up. I abandoned it and went to help on the living room floor.
With 3 guys working, the oak flooring came up quickly. Dad also pulled the antique toilet, which was requested by a member of Old House Web forums. Dad got the bathroom lights as well. Do you notice a trend? Dad is one mean salvager!
We tried the windows next. Our original plan was to cut around the windows, then take them out whole, trim and all. After Dad ruined two chainsaw blades, we nixed the idea. I started bashing out plaster around the windows, thinking that he could just cut through the lath and exterior wood. By the time I was done, most of the living room floor was up, and we decided to break for dinner.
After dinner, we started to pull up some pine upstairs. There was a bit of learning curve to it, and we initially started on the wrong edge. The boards are nailed through the tongue, so you have to pry them up that way or they splinter and break. After sacrificing a few boards, we realized our mistake and started on the other end. We got about 15 or 20 boards, which was more than I needed to patch the holes in the living and dining room.
Two of our helpers left after dinner, so things slowed down. We got a bit more oak flooring from the living room, then tackled the windows. Instead of removing them whole, Dad thought it would be better to pull the trim. That worked pretty well. We took out the sashes, then the exterior trim. The windows then just pretty much popped out. We didn't realize how not-secured they were, though, and we dropped the first one out of the house and onto the ground. Thankfully, nothing broke.
The second one went quicker. But in the middle of that, I went onto the little sun porch to start taking off the trim from those windows. I examined one, then turned around to go back into the living room and noticed a very unhappy skunk in the corner looking at me. Yikes. I tactically retreated and told Shayne and Dad that we needed to get out sooner rather than later. Shayne took another peek on the porch, and the skunk was now ass-end out with his tail raised. Definitely time to go.
We pulled the second window, packed up our tools, and loaded the trailer. In the meantime, we also took off the arched front door with its storm door and the half-lite kitchen door. By the time we pulled out the driveway, it was 10:30 pm.
All in all, we got 2 double-windows with vinyl storms, 2 doors, 1 arched storm door, 200 sq ft of oak flooring, 50 ft of 8" wide pine baseboard, 15 pine floorboards, a toilet, 2 bathroom sidelights, and a 3 ft tall door and frame from the upstairs attic.
The next day I went back, and the house looked like this:
I know we did well under the circumstances, but I'm a little disappointed with what we got. There was so much more in that house that was salvageable, but we just didn't have the time. And we didn't really know what we were doing. Once we conquered the learning curve on each task, it went quickly. But not quickly enough to get everything. And the skunk kind of threw a wrench into things.
I had high hopes of getting every single window out of that house. They all were in great condition, and we could have used them when we build our new home. Same with the oak floor. There was another 600 or so sq ft. And the kitchen cabinets would have been awesome. But we learned a lot, and I'm definitely going to do it again if I can find a suitable house.
And, even if I didn't get everything I wanted, I got the best of what was there. The windows we got had never been painted or refinished, and they worked very smoothly. The doors are very nice, and we got enough flooring for a whole room. Not what I was hoping for, but certainly much better than nothing.
My other issue with the whole experience is my disgust at the waste. That house was in perfect shape. Really. We could have moved right in. It was clean, well-maintained, and very cute. It pisses me off that it was destroyed just because it was in the way of some distant future progress. So much was lost, even though we saved a little. I feel guilty because I couldn't save more.
Indiana University is expanding into a neighborhood west of campus soon. All the houses there will be auctioned and salvaged. I have a feeling our learning experience will be helping us soon...
My first surprise was that I had been expecting two days to work on the house, but the company told me that they were going to demo it on Tuesday morning. That gave us only 5-6 hours to grab what we could. I'm still upset that we couldn't get in sooner, since Shayne and I were both off on Sunday, and we could have gone in then. But oh well...
My first mistake was in not having a clear plan. I knew I wanted flooring, windows, and beadboard, but I didn't do a great job of organizing my labor. It took about 45 minutes for us to really get down to work pulling up the floor in the living room. Meanwhile, Dad grabbed a screen door, well pump, sump pump, a bathroom vanity and sink, and some other odds and ends. Obviously he wasn't wasting any time! Lesson learned.
I tried to get the beadboard from the kitchen, but had limited success. It was new, for one thing, and very thin. Since it was painted over, it just cracked and splintered when I tried to pry it up. I abandoned it and went to help on the living room floor.
With 3 guys working, the oak flooring came up quickly. Dad also pulled the antique toilet, which was requested by a member of Old House Web forums. Dad got the bathroom lights as well. Do you notice a trend? Dad is one mean salvager!
We tried the windows next. Our original plan was to cut around the windows, then take them out whole, trim and all. After Dad ruined two chainsaw blades, we nixed the idea. I started bashing out plaster around the windows, thinking that he could just cut through the lath and exterior wood. By the time I was done, most of the living room floor was up, and we decided to break for dinner.
After dinner, we started to pull up some pine upstairs. There was a bit of learning curve to it, and we initially started on the wrong edge. The boards are nailed through the tongue, so you have to pry them up that way or they splinter and break. After sacrificing a few boards, we realized our mistake and started on the other end. We got about 15 or 20 boards, which was more than I needed to patch the holes in the living and dining room.
Two of our helpers left after dinner, so things slowed down. We got a bit more oak flooring from the living room, then tackled the windows. Instead of removing them whole, Dad thought it would be better to pull the trim. That worked pretty well. We took out the sashes, then the exterior trim. The windows then just pretty much popped out. We didn't realize how not-secured they were, though, and we dropped the first one out of the house and onto the ground. Thankfully, nothing broke.
The second one went quicker. But in the middle of that, I went onto the little sun porch to start taking off the trim from those windows. I examined one, then turned around to go back into the living room and noticed a very unhappy skunk in the corner looking at me. Yikes. I tactically retreated and told Shayne and Dad that we needed to get out sooner rather than later. Shayne took another peek on the porch, and the skunk was now ass-end out with his tail raised. Definitely time to go.
We pulled the second window, packed up our tools, and loaded the trailer. In the meantime, we also took off the arched front door with its storm door and the half-lite kitchen door. By the time we pulled out the driveway, it was 10:30 pm.
All in all, we got 2 double-windows with vinyl storms, 2 doors, 1 arched storm door, 200 sq ft of oak flooring, 50 ft of 8" wide pine baseboard, 15 pine floorboards, a toilet, 2 bathroom sidelights, and a 3 ft tall door and frame from the upstairs attic.
The next day I went back, and the house looked like this:
I know we did well under the circumstances, but I'm a little disappointed with what we got. There was so much more in that house that was salvageable, but we just didn't have the time. And we didn't really know what we were doing. Once we conquered the learning curve on each task, it went quickly. But not quickly enough to get everything. And the skunk kind of threw a wrench into things.
I had high hopes of getting every single window out of that house. They all were in great condition, and we could have used them when we build our new home. Same with the oak floor. There was another 600 or so sq ft. And the kitchen cabinets would have been awesome. But we learned a lot, and I'm definitely going to do it again if I can find a suitable house.
And, even if I didn't get everything I wanted, I got the best of what was there. The windows we got had never been painted or refinished, and they worked very smoothly. The doors are very nice, and we got enough flooring for a whole room. Not what I was hoping for, but certainly much better than nothing.
My other issue with the whole experience is my disgust at the waste. That house was in perfect shape. Really. We could have moved right in. It was clean, well-maintained, and very cute. It pisses me off that it was destroyed just because it was in the way of some distant future progress. So much was lost, even though we saved a little. I feel guilty because I couldn't save more.
Indiana University is expanding into a neighborhood west of campus soon. All the houses there will be auctioned and salvaged. I have a feeling our learning experience will be helping us soon...
2/28/2011
In which I actually do something house-related (!!)
A few months ago, I noticed that the airport had acquired a cute little bungalow. They've been buying up houses like mad for the past several years; they knocked down a half-mile of neighborhood to move a road and expand the runway, and there are plans for another expansion in the future. This little bungalow was in the way. Once the weather cleared up a bit, I went to check out the house. Not only was it cute on the outside, it was adorable and in near-perfect shape inside. Aside from the shaggy carpet in the living room, the house looked like it fell out of the '30s. The entire upstairs floor is pine, and there is beadboard everywhere.
 |
| Living room windows |
 |
| Original plumbing |
 |
| Beadboard sunroom |
 |
| Beadboard wainscot and original kitchen cabinets |
 |
| Jackpot! LOTS of pine flooring! |
They're doing a final walkthrough today in preparation for demolition later this week, but we can go in once they're done today. That doesn't give us a lot of time, but I'm sure I can still get some goodies!
4/03/2008
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...
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...
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