Everyone needs a really big letter in their house, don’t you agree?
Dave from Second Use agrees, look how excited he is. He had to climb a ladder AND stand on a refrigerator to get it down.
No, I don’t want the F.
I bought this vintage utility sink years ago at Second Use Building Materials. We had been considering a second floor addition and weren’t 100% sure the remodel would actually happen. But then I fell in love with the sink and had to get it. So my argument for the remodel became “we have to do it, we already have the sink!”.
The addition eventually did happen and I finally got to use the sink.
Here are some pictures of the finished bathroom. Things to note:
If there is a moral of this story, I guess it would be: if you love something that is one-of-a-kind – even if you don’t quite know what to do with it – go ahead and buy it (if your significant-other will let you and you have room in your basement, that is.)
Yesterday we took a quick field trip to the Laura Frost Gallery in Ballard to see the Recycled Art Show sponsored by RE-Store.
There are some really cool pieces – pictured below are a few examples. Stop by if you have a chance and support our art community. The show is up until May 8th.
Oh, and did I mention I have a piece in the show? It would be great if someone could buy it so I don’t have to take it home.
More press:
We found some great geological maps at Second Use Building Materials. They have such interesting colors and patterns – they are cool enough to frame. Just for fun, we made one into a cylindrical table lamp. Continue reading
A few weeks ago we posted about our idea of painting our floor (From Ugly to Lovely: Painting a Floor, part 1) – and talked about scope creep. Part of the scope creep was dealing with the (ugly/inefficient) wood stove and the (ugly/toe-stubbing) hearth that was under the stove.
Well, there is no turning back now – yesterday we demo’d. It actually didn’t take very long – here’s what we did: Continue reading
Vintage motion picture case – cleaned up and used for photo display and storage.
We found these cool old motion picture shipping cases at Second Use Building Materials. In fact, they had quite a few – check it out, there may be some left! We made this one into a case to display & store vintage photos.
Our house was built around 1911 with Douglas Fir floors. Six years ago, during our remodel, we ripped out the carpet and saw why someone chose to cover up the floors.
There was/is:
We had gathered a few things and thought it would be fun to try to make a retro vintage industrial adjustable salvaged upcycled (not gonna say “steampunk”) wall sconce.
What we started with:
What we ended with:
Question for you:
We talked previously about opening a little Etsy shop and selling some of the things that we make (it could be that some members of our families are getting sick of weird light fixtures in their house). We were considering selling (at least attempting to sell) some of these light fixtures there, but started worrying about the liability. Have any of you out there had any experience with that sort of thing? Or have any advice for us? We use all UL approved parts, yet we’re worried – we aren’t licensed electricians.
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One way to get immediate character in a house remodel is to use salvaged doors. Old doors can be beautiful, with great quality and craftsmanship. Depending on availability, it can also save you money. On the downside, using salvaged doors can take patience, planning, and elbow grease. Other downsides include the possibility of lead paint and dings/imperfections (although one girl’s dings/imperfections are another girl’s patina). Second Use Building Materials has great information on using salvaged doors on their do it yourself page on their website.
We got all these doors from Second Use Building Materials in Seattle. We were able to find 15 matching 4 panel painted doors to use for all the room and closet doors. For the other larger/unusual openings we found some natural wood (cedar? fir?) doors that someone salvaged out of an old building. They had them stripped of paint and had them stored for use in a future home that was never built. Somehow they ended up at Second Use and we were ecstatic to find them there. I wish I could say we installed all these doors ourselves, but we hired a carpenter for this project. (That is probably why it got done.)
There are several ways to use salvaged doors in a house, whether it’s a remodel or new construction. Continue reading
A while back, we published a post about selecting douglas fir lumber from the odd lot section at our local lumber yard to use for window trim. That lumber sat for a while in the basement while we worked on other projects.
We (or should I say the husband) decided it was finally time to get to work on it. It went something like this: “The lamps, the pillows are nice and everything, but maybe you 3 could work on some projects that will get the house done.” He’s so practical (and right).
Just as a reminder, we had 9 windows without trim. The windows came from Loewen, a company from Canada. They make beautiful SDL (simulated divided light) windows – you can check out their website. One thing they do in their fir windows is mix a vertical grain (vg) fir with a less costly flat grain to make them more affordable. To save costs, that is what our plan entailed as well for the trim and we saved even more money by going to the odd lot section. We told ourselves that we would be ok with imperfections such as knots, and once everything was up, the knots did just become a natural part of the window.
Here is one example of window sans trim:
Our craftsman trim design was pretty simple – Continue reading
