When we first bought the house we were going to leave the kitchen as-is. They were in really good condition – not original to the house but from the ’90s and good quality (still over 30 years old… isn’t that nuts!). When we decided to move the kitchen into the living room we were going to keep the bank of cabinets below as a large pantry/mudroom. But the more we pictured our lives here, the more we realized that to have the layout and flow that we wanted, we would need to kinda start all over and have more flexibility with the kitchen footprint.
There comes a point where you realize you are going to be spending so much money doing the renovation that not getting the kitchen you want feels dumb. But the kitchen cabinets were so nice and I did not want them in a landfill. So instead of demo-ing them out with our demo contractor, we paid ARCIFORM to painstakingly remove them in-tact so that they could be repurposed somewhere else. Thank you, Jamie 🙂
Once in the garage, we thought about moving them to the new mudroom, but functionally they weren’t going to meet our needs as much, and they didn’t fit size-wise so we would have had to cobble them together or move some walls. All doable, but I feared that we would be annoyed long-term. Forcing this was likely not going to get us the results that we want.
SO HOW DO YOU KEEP GOOD STUFF OUT OF A LANDFILL?
So first off – again you need to be very careful removing anything that you want to salvage (and some stuff is very hard to – like flooring and tile). If you aren’t careful, it’s unusable. Next – research your area to see if there is a used building supply resource. I heard about The Rebuilding Center in Portland by literally walking by it on Mississippi and immediately knew it was a great solution – not just for our cabinetry but for any of our appliances that were older, but still totally functioning. We reached out and were so impressed with the whole organization and honestly so relieved to have this option.
What Does The Rebuilding Center Do?
- They sell usable building supplies at an extremely affordable price in hopes of updating homes that don’t have a large remodel budget.
- While anyone can shop there they are creating a grant program so that lower-income families can apply and have preference. The goal is democratizing home design (as the renovation process is just so expensive), and helping people to update their homes to have more generational wealth. We love this very much.
- They have classes to train and educate people how to fix up their own homes (carpentry, electrical, plumbing and wall framing, etc) – a lot of people can lose their homes because they fall into such disrepair and are full of code violations. So by teaching people how to do basic maintenance they are helping add value to their homes long term.
- They’ll come to your job site and remove the usable building supplies (again, not junk – it has to be usable) or any overages you have. It was an extremely easy process for us (they want me to point out that it is much more streamlined than it used to be).
It’s pretty awesome and the people that run it are so lovely and really thinking big picture and long term.
How Much Do They Sell Things For?
They make it very, very affordable. Our cabinetry was in really good condition and they sold the whole lot for $950 and it sold immediately. It makes me SO happy to know that they went so quickly to a home to be rebuilt and used (They are trying to track down the buyer so we might see it in their home when it’s installed). They bought the entire set (including the soapstone) which warms up this heart.
Now you do need to get your items approved before they come to pick up – they aren’t a dump and they are being more selective now to make sure that the inventory is full of usable pieces. But they did say that there are things people think are unusable but actually aren’t. So getting them to come out and let you know what is good is a great idea.
But if it’s in good, usable condition they’ll take doors, windows, wood, leftover tiles, plumbing fixtures, cabinetry, sinks – all of it. Some of it is cute and vintagey and others are just boxes of subway tile for $5.
They actually had some super fun doors and windows, which might be hard for a full remodel, but if you are just wanting to say add a window (even an interior one) they had some good ones.
That was my fridge – not sold yet – but all the rest of the appliances went immediately so I didn’t get a photo of them in the store.
My goal with this is to bring awareness to this awesome non-profit and help people understand a WAY better option than just sledgehammering out perfectly usable building supplies. I was honestly so relieved when I heard that our cabinets when immediately to a family’s home. But listen, demo crews aren’t gentle and they are paid to be fast and basically just destroy everything. So doing it in a thoughtful way will be more expensive, but for us, we felt like it was our responsibility to ensure that these could be used and appreciated by others as well as stay out of the landfill. While the renovation process is still full of so much waste, having resources like The Rebuilding Center is incredible. They calculated that they kept 700 tons of materials out of the landfill last year. Incredible!!!
Calling Oregon Building Material Partners
I also want to help them get more commercial partners – i.e. more local companies that can donate deadstock supplies that are in really good condition, or overages. They already work with Rejuvenation and Pratt + Larson, but if you are a local Oregon or Washington building supply company (could be flooring, molding, windows, tile, siding, plumbing – anything) they are SUCH a lovely place to donate to (and of course its a tax write-off).
We even had some fun ideas on future collaborations – like pairing the families up with a design intern from the local design schools to help them with their projects. The future designer can get some real-life hands-on experience, and the family who likely doesn’t have the budget for a designer (because so few people do) can get some support and help with the remodel process (and I could oversee it and be of additional support). We also talked about how there is a real need for handypeople these days so it seems like a training program to help teach people the basics would be beneficial to the job market.
So moral of the story is that if you are renovating, do as much as you can to reduce your waste. It may cost a little more but if you can afford to, it’s the best thing to do. There are lots of places like this all over so with a little google search you can do A LOT of good. Happy salvaging. xx
For those wanting to know more about the Rebuilding Center specifically (they are awesome so please check them out) here are a bunch of great resources:
THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE.
