Reuse. Rehabilitate. Restore. Architectural salvage and repurposed pieces for the home.
Lemme just regurgitate someone else’s news for a quickie post here.
Via Alternative Consumer:
Last month The New York Design Center launched a showcase and resource center featuring products that have been created with sustainability in mind. The Green Room will feature 10 exhibits which will change each month. The project is being brought to us by “Verdant” magazine and “Cottage and Garden” publications.
The Design Center is located at 200 Lexington Avenue.
Oh yeah! You know I want one of these! I saw this on Treehugger originally and then found a few other fascinating sites from that post. So fascinating, in fact, that I’m inspired to work on some new projects.
Web Urbanist featured the bottle house, along with 4 other types of recycled architecture. The bottles are my favorite because they look like jewels. The oldest known bottle house was built in 1907. Since then, many bottle homes have been built around the world out of necessity where building supplies are scarce.
Agility Nut has links to many of them.
I discovered this holiday appropriate house while cruising around Offbeat Homes. It’s set on 15 acres in Vermont and was built in 1997. Reading about the construction, I felt a bit guilty about ever complaining about my own renovations….“We were camping with a 1 1/2 year old not yet potty trained with cold weather coming fast. There were several 28 degree nights that month.” Gosh, I’ve had it so kushy, with my heating and luxury porta potty.
Sphere Cottage
Who says all of your kitchen cabinets must match? Someone show me where that is written as law. Period homes didn’t have consistent Kraftmade or Ikea cabinets lined up neatly in a row. They had pieces of lovely one of a kind furnishings.
I must disclose one minor fact now. I have never been, nor will I ever be, a cook. I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone whose most important appliance is her microwave. Followed by the telephone if nothing is available to reheat. So, all I really want is for my kitchen to look bitchin’ cool.
Hoosiers, cupboards and vintage iceboxes can all be used as storage. Antique farm tables can make lovely countertops. Vintage cabinet doors seem to be easier to come by than full cabinets. If you’re handy, you can build the rest of the cabinet around the doors. If you’re lucky, they’ll fit your existing cabinetry (but chances are, they won’t).
You know where to look….antiques fairs and shops, Craigs, Ebay, salvage places. Keep in mind these old pieces can be repainted or stripped and embellished with vintage hardware.
Dream Green Homes is fabulous site for anyone doing research on building their own green home. The site is laid out so even an A.D.D. person like myself can find their way around. It’s broken down into styles, materials and functions. House plans can be purchased in the store. I want the packaged earthship.
Kelly Hart, the site’s host, is also the guy behind Green Home Building. Very similar subject matter. Loads of info. Here, you can sign up for training programs and buy informative books.
Call me a cynical New Yorker, but it looks like these folks drank too much kool aid. I’m not used to seeing shiny happy people. I just wanna say….if they’re affiliated with some kind of cult, I am not aware of it.
Finally, a new product for our store! We’ve been concentrating so much on our posts that it’s taking us ages to create lovely reclaimed home fixtures to sell. Which is how we’ll make money. So we can keep this blog going. Get the hint?
The siding on this prototype is made with 100% reclaimed wainscoting from an 1865 farmhouse in Poughkeepsie. The cedar framing is new material. This is the second prototype we built. The first one didn’t work out so well. We thought it would be a great idea to use discarded shipping pallets. Well, if someone knows of a way to take pallets apart EASILY, please let us know. In the meantime, we cut them down for our much smaller kitty litter box enclosures (not built yet).Continue reading Introducing the Reclaimed Trash Bin Enclosure
I’m not trying to justify spending $324 on a trash bin (although I’ll be swallowing those words soon when I report about the Reclaimed Home trash bin enclosure), but I’ve gotta admit, this does seem cool.
I saw it on AT Green yesterday. I’ve never counted how many cans and bottles I can get into my bin, not even when my dog gets into them and I have to put them back one by one. I’m sure it’s nowhere near the crushed 50-60 containers that the Ecopod holds.
People Powered Machines has some great products. Hint to husband: I might be willing to deal with the compost heap if you bought me a RolyPig.
A reader (who happens to work for Illy Coffee) sent us this tip after reading about the shipping container homes.
Although we’ve seen the Push Button House online, we didn’t realize that we’ll get to see it in our own backyard come November. It will be set up as a cafe in Columbus Circle from November 28-December 29. It is meant to show Illy’s commitment to sustainability, from coffee production to development and environment.
We’ve been breaking down our countertop reviews by material. The Kitchen Designer has the complete guide posted this week. Apart from the old standbys, Paperstone and Icestone, there are some companies on there that we’ve overlooked (or didn’t get to yet).
The most impressive one to us was the Craft Art wood, because the reclaimed counters had an antique look to them and we like anything that looks weathered and beaten. Kitchen Designer sites that there are 8 new reclaimed species available. Craft Art sources new exotic and domestic woods upon request if the species is not endangered.
Saw this on Off Beat Homes, my new favorite website. She has a house called “The Poop House” on there! Oh, you can bet I’ll be covering that one.
But back to the lovely Remainder House… From Open Space Architect’s website: “The Remainder House is a celebration of old growth timbers salvaged from a New Westminster warehouse. The house was carefully sited on a tight triangular shaped lot to frame a woodland garden, maintaining the existing trees, minimizing the visual impact to neighbors and maximizing Southern views over the water. All was achieved without removing a single existing tree. “
The house is in British Columbia, but hey, just as easy to build it here in New York (Hear that, architects and builders?). I would love, love, love to have a weekend retreat in a place like this. Anything longer than that, I have to admit, would make me claustrophobic.
This designer keeps catching my eye, so I figured I may as well get it out of my system and do a post. I found the Modern Front store via Etsy. The Plastic Fantastic line is reconditioned antique furniture coated in soft rubber that’s suitable for interior or exterior use. It’s produced by Jasper Van Grotel in Holland and made to order in the $1200-7000 price range for furniture (less for light fixtures!). Design Front, the US distributor, is based out of Red Bank, NJ.
Cutting hole with jigsaw
This isn’t a very difficult project and hey kids, it can be fun and creative too!
I disagree with HGTV when they say pick out the sink first. I think it’s more difficult to find an antique piece of furniture. Soo, I suggest you find the perfect piece first. Height should be around 32 inches, but you can make it higher or lower (if it has legs). Large dressers and sideboards work well for double vanities.Continue reading DIY: Sink Vanity
This article was posted on My So-Called Japanese Life back in February, but of course I didn’t find out about it until Treehugger did, via Apartment Therapy, LA.
Shari, a Westerner living in Japan for the last 17 years, writes “When we first arrived, with little furniture and relatively few items, space seemed relatively plentiful. As time went by and our possessions and amount of furniture grew, things grew increasingly cramped and chaotic.”
I bet we can all learn a little something from this article, such as:
#3: Toss out anything you haven’t used in over a year.
#10: Buy tall furniture rather than long or wide.
#20: Get rid of your bed and buy that Karl Farbman chest of drawers. Nah, that me, not Shari.
Ecosystems Brand is a fairly new company based out of Brooklyn that “…strives to provide eco-effective products that generate positive effects on the ecology, economy and social equity of the system they inhabit.”
How so, you ask? Well, first of all, they use sustainable materials. They manufacture the products locally, use flat pack shipping, tool free assembly and best of all….they will pick up and recycle their products once the useful life is over.
Contact the company directly for purchasing info.
We recently wrote about Squak Mountain Stone and Kliptech countertops. Over the weekend, Treehugger reported that the two companies have merged to form Trinity Glass. Amee Quiriconi and Joel Klippert were constantly meeting up at events and exchanging ideas, so it seemed natural to merge.
Trinity Glass is a composite of 75% glass from recycled beer bottles, plate windows, wine bottles, etc from Seattle and 25% low carbon cement.