The Eco-Logical Home is a weekly podcast program exploring sustainability and creating healthy, energy efficient, and joyful places to live.  Host Terry Phelan interviews guests that practice ways to design, organize, build, and maintain healthy, comfortable, and resilient places to live – and she recently interviewed The RE Store’s Bray Hayden, Seattle Outreach, Marketing & Development Manager about our stores and our field services.  Take a listen!

It is a two part podcast – you can link directly to them here and here – and then peruse the rest of Terry’s great topics, ranging from solar technologies to permaculture and rain gardens, and lots in between!  Thanks so much for having us, Terry! 

Bray Hayden - surrounded by her Seattle store crew

The RE Store has a long history of bootstrapping its own projects and innovations. We have had very few grants over the years. The few we have been awarded were focused on research and development of creative ways to reclaim more materials from the flood stage waste stream that we are drowning in. We already save the equivalent of 5 fully loaded Boeing 747′s per year (over 4,500,000 pounds) and are constantly pushing for more.

Eberhard discusses techniques of turning a hollow core door into furniture with Alcoa Foundation members

Our REvision Division program was started in 2012 with our own precious capital in this challenging economy. Now the Alcoa Foundation has seen fit to support our efforts. The injection of these funds will be used to further improve our education and sharing of ideas that will reduce waste, save you money, and hopefully even help you feel good about growing your do-it-yourself attitude, if you aren’t already a DIY rock star.

Watch this short video with Kurt Gisclair, Director of The RE Store, talking about the 3 main goals of the REvision Division. Josh Wilund, Public Affairs Manager for Alcoa, then goes on to talk about how The RE Store is setting benchmarks for other organizations like Alcoa with reuse, salvage, green demolition aka deconstruction, and more. Josh disclosed that he is a regular shopper and donates materials to The RE Store. When Josh and the Alcoa Foundation team looked deeper into the statistics and metrics of our programs and our proposal to move the ball down the field, that they saw how much of an example The RE Store is setting.  The non-profit organization is doing salvage, resale, job training and education and more. The Bellingham and Seattle-based org is continuing to reach out in 2012 with an all-new The RE Store Certified program, the 11th annual Recycled Arts Show, and much more.

Are you curious to see how local businesses have incorporated reclaimed materials into their projects? Do you like to support businesses that are taking steps to be responsible stewards of this beautiful place where we live? The RE Store Certified Program is scratching the back of progressive local businesses. The non-profit organization is launching a new program that will recognize local businesses that make significant efforts to incorporate salvage, reclaimed materials and green building practices.

Draft map of The RE Store Certified Guide - a second page will have more in-depth info about businesses

Imagine some of your favorite restaurants, bars, boutiques, salons, and other places you frequent, all together on a map, with details about what cool and unusual materials they have used in building and decorating. The map will be available online as a navigable, custom Google map, along with a downloadable pdf version and also a printed version you can come grab at our stores in Ballard or Bellingham. We look forward to launching the maps and web presence for The RE Store Certified Guide in the Spring so stay tuned.

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Eberhard Eichner of The RE Store’s REvision Division walks you through the process of designing and building two different styles of freestanding bookshelves. Eberhard covers fastening with easy screw and plug construction. Learn ways make your bookshelf solid and fit against walls with base trim or windows.

Learn more about the REvision Division, view the furniture line photo gallery and check out our other do-it-yourself videos on our main website.

Some of the City Year volunteer projects of the day

We cannot fully express our gratitude to the City Year gang that had a day of service with us here at the Seattle store Monday, December 19th!  An incredibly energetic and positive group of 45 corps members took on many of our ‘wish list’ projects in the store, in the offices and in our back lot and warehouse alongside the all-hands-on-deck staff.  The transformations were incredible – including:  repainting our logo on our west wall, painting our office, conference room, hallway, and our soon-to-be library/education room, organizing our supplies room and workshop, laying floor and repainting our bathroom, putting down pavers in our garden area out back, rewiring our back fence, denailing lumber from recent deconstruction jobs, and pulling down and sorting all sorts of tucked away treasures from our racks (come see what was unearthed!).  All of this with fairly continuous singing and dancing coming from the group, made for a fun time.  We may be a little sore after all of that, but we are incredibly humbled by their energy and efforts – and incredibly happy with the results.  Thanks so much, City Year for such a great present for the holidays – and for Pat’s birthday that day!  And a special shout-out to Taylor Oden of City Year and Anita Smith of The RE Store for their exhaustive work coordinating these efforts!

The RE Store is welcoming submissions for the 2012 11th Annual Recycled Arts Show, to be be held in April of 2012. Galleries in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington will host month-long exhibitions of art and functional design pieces. All pieces must be made from a minimum of 75% reclaimed materials. Submissions are limited to residents of Washington, Oregon, Idaho or British Columbia, Canada. The deadline for submissions is March 2, 2012. The application forms can be found on The RE Store’s main website for either the Seattle or Bellingham galleries.

Watch our lovely 1 minute video – expand it to full screen to better see great art and design pieces from past years.

Subscribe to The RE Store’s monthly email update to receive all the latest news about our events, do-it-yourself building tips and tricks and more.

String Theory chandelier by Elizabeth Joy Clements

As an interior designer and artist, Elizabeth Joy Clements follows the philosophy of biophilia, and is constantly thinking about ways to create with a healthy tomorrow in mind.  “I believe the space we inhabit has the power to create illusions, expose the truth and question and change reality.” Clements says.  These notions informed her work when creating this chandelier, String Theory, for the Mighty Tieton Winter Festival* in an abandoned fruit warehouse. In her words:

This chandelier design is based on the exploration of going deeper into what is. What makes up the world we inhabit? What is the structure of the universe? The scientific community provides a diverse spectrum of theories that amaze and inspire the mind. Wave, particle, frequency. The chandelier design is a manifestation of an abstracted shape derived from the string theory, a branch of theoretical physics. It is an artistic interpretation of a visual representation of what is. The structure is a hybrid of traditional chandelier form, fabric ceiling installation, and hanging sculpture. 17,000 ft. of string is used to create String Theory.

String Theory being installed at the Mighty Tieton Winter Festival

Everything besides the string and electrical was salvaged from The RE Store in Bellingham to make String Theory.  The chandelier is 6′-10″ in diameter and it took 4 people and 2 scissor lifts to install! Clements says “I’m obsessed with design and the process of making things” and she loves to feature salvage or recycled materials in her work.  Currently, she is designing a jewelry collection and starting her own business.  Contact her with inquiries (commissions are welcome) – she can be reached at elizabethjoyclements [at] gmail.com.

 * Mighty Tieton is an incubator for artisan businesses in Tieton, WA, with the goal of helping revitalize the economy of the town and region by combining creative and professional skills, and connecting with local resources to build successful businesses involving art, design, hospitality, and recreation.

Do you have a RE Store-inspired project to be proud of?  Please, show off & share your story!

In this Quick Tip from our resident furniture design/build rockstar, Eberhard Eichner, learn how to turn scrap pieces of trim / molding into creative accents for cabinetry. You could apply these techniques to counters, tables, and other home decor items.

Learn more about The RE Store’s REvision Division, making affordable furniture from reclaimed materials or visit our stores in Seattle or Bellingham.

Subscribe to our email newsletter to receive the latest Quick Tips from Eberhard and other news, events, sales and more from the front of the reuse revolution.

Paul and Alaine's dining room before the installation of the doors

The residents of Bellingham, Washington are passionate about using the most of what one has, while having less of an impact on the environment around them. Paul Haskins and Alaine Borgias, owners of the successful Adventures NW magazine, know firsthand about choosing options that conserve both resources and money. These native Bellingham folk live in a Victorian-style home, so more contemporary home accessories were not an option for them.

Paul and Alaine ran into a predicament when they realized they needed a set of doors that would allow them to grill outside more easily, but these doors needed to match the look of their older home. Haskins explains, “We were big on cooking outside, but did not have an easy way to access the barbecue without going through three doors or through rooms, which we didn’t want to be bringing food through. And it couldn’t be just any old door, as we wanted to keep in line with our Victorian home’s design.”

The newly installed double doors kept with the Victorian style of the house

Haskins said how his wife, Alaine, found an “almost perfect set of doors with frame and hardware at The RE Store,” where there is a large selection of used doors in a variety of styles, some of which match the older homes in the neighborhoods surrounding the store. The two talked and eventually figured that the set was perfect for their home – the only flaw was they did not have enough room to store the doors in the garage because of too many finds already from The RE Store in there. This project had to be put on, as what Haskins called it, “fast track.”

Thanks to their hard work, now Paul and Alaine are able to enjoy barbecuing year-round with a set of doors that fits in with the look of their Victorian home. Paul recalls that “it’s been a sort of joke how family or people who have been to the house regularly have walked past them numerous times before they finally say, ‘Oh my god, you have doors!’ We couldn’t have done it without The RE Store!”

Haskins figures that he ended up spending more money on just the trim of the doors than the actual doors. It pays to be green and use sustainable building products while keeping with the design elements of historic homes.

Front counter at the Row House Cafe

Located in South Lake Union’s Cascade neighborhood in Seattle, the Row House Café offers a comforting sense of nostalgia in appearance and atmosphere and is known among its customers as the “neighborhood living room.” Originally built in 1904 as three row houses that offered work force housing, the structure has since been redeveloped into the current digs where the café operates now.

Interior with salvaged doors, windows and lighting from The RE Store

We recently spoke with Row House Café partner, Erin Maher, who told us the story of their recent remodeling project and explained how she “shopped at The RE Store to find furniture, fixtures, and building materials that helped us stay true to the integrity of the original buildings.” Some of the products that Erin found to match her tastes were architectural windows pulled from a historic home on Capital Hill, a pastry case made from an antique jewelry box, vintage medallions above the windows, and doors trimmed with old ceiling moldings.

Row House Cafe seating and salvaged decor

Since the non-profit salvage store in Ballard can overwhelm the senses with its large selection of just about everything, Erin would visit the store “with an open mind.” Maher said, “I was able to see new and different uses for the items in the store.”  Erin knew that fresh items arrive daily to The RE Store, so she made return trips to get new ideas from the eclectic inventory of items with unique stories and characteristics to them.

A big project she accomplished with the help of The RE Store was building a patio fence from exterior shutters and columns. Erin told me how they created “the entire storefront using old windows and a French door and sidelights, all from different periods to create a one-of-a-kind entrance to our private party space converted from a cinderblock garage.”

Erin remarked on the special synergy that The RE Store and Row House Café have. “They both bring out the unique characteristics of a living, breathing space in order to make it beautiful for our guests.”