David Spangler stands next to his RE Store diorama.
Photo was taken by Audra Anderson from Casciada Daily.
By David Spangler
As a RE Store Receiving Room assistant and the creator of the miniature diorama installation currently on display at The RE Store, I was asked if I would share my favorite RE Store departments to inspire other miniaturists who enjoy working with discarded, found objects. What follows are some hot spots in the store worthy of a closer look.
1) Cabinet Hardware
When I look through the lens of a miniaturist, Cabinetware is a mountain of unrealized potential. The limitless variety of designs of knobs and handles that are tossed onto its shelves are stimulating gems for all sorts of small-scale things. I see little side tables, truck bumpers, car grills, ornate headboards for beds, and the white ceramic knobs make realistic antique lights for those tiny projects in need of some old chandelier realism. Many handles and knobs are made of thin or soft alloys that can be modified with tin snips, a hacksaw, or filed down to fit your needs.
2) Tile
The Tile Department is excellent not just for tile artists, renovators, or repair contractors seeking matching tile but also for artists who need small details to trick out their scenes. Mosaic tile sheets and their affordable scraps are my favorites as they can be useful in various miniature ways. Delightful new arrangements continue to arrive at our store, and these sheets often involve small, even tiny, adorable pieces of real marble and limestone, glass of all kinds, and ceramic. Some swankier versions have brushed bronze, brass, nickel, aluminum, and chrome. I imagine patios, wall art, small tables, and mirrors—all in miniature. These individual tiles can easily be cut from the sheet with any knife. On occasion, when colorful tile samples come in, I can’t wait to get them out into the tile area for the next artist who may be inspired to take them home.
3) Door Hardware
Doorware is a quiet, semi-organized room just off the furniture section with an unchaperoned mess of metal of all kinds. Who in town has that? We do! While many useful door-related materials exist, the mixed piles of parts will siphon off another hour of my life, digging excitedly. I have found pieces I can use as sinks and plastic parts that have turned into tiny plastic storage tubs.
4) Garden Area
Visiting our Garden Area might yield tantalizing black plastic plant nursery trays of various grid styles that I cut up for my miniature windows or unexpected odds and ends that catch my eye.
5) Hardwood Scraps
The hardwood scrap areas within our warehouse’s walls are chock-full of unusual and delightful finds, many from a local maker of designer cutting boards. Many of the scraps I have found have become, with some modification, all sorts of miniature things—rows of books on a shelf, wall art, table tops, and hardwood cabinetry.
6) Hardware
A carnival for the creative, Hardware is more than a collection of useful fasteners, nuts, washers, joist hangers, and other supplies there in ample supply. It is also a gold mine of surprising odds and ends. I often find suitable candidates for my small-scale projects, but there is much for other miniaturists to use in their respective creative madness. But, alas, if only they knew it was here!
7) The Gallery
Here is a wonderland of the old and the odd. Once the proud showroom of the former Revision Division program, the Gallery is a cozy, new twist on an old RE Store department that faded into oblivion many years ago: our once cherished vintage and antique section. It is awash in trinkets and treasure of various patinas and quantities. And, as with this section’s curated display cases of yesteryear’s eye candy and century-old bling, even the junk piles of mixed, small curios and other assorted hardware are in constant rotation.
8) Parking Lot
The RE Store’s outdoor area has not only useful landscaping materials and lawn furniture but also a smattering of cool, smaller-sized stuff on occasion. There are pallet racks of all sorts of things for sale, which change weekly. I can find rolls or scraps of several sizes of metal mesh or hardware cloth that are useful for miniature fencing and for making multi-paned windows, not to mention many other uses in craft-making. Additionally, each hour, you can often find carts of newly arrived materials that many customers have just walked by and have not seen yet. Sometimes, it’s only wood, but other times, it’s mixed with all sorts of great stuff that is warehouse-bound. On those carts, maybe, just maybe, is the perfect thing to make your creative pursuit come true.
9) Electrical Department
The Electrical Department has been a fruitful treasure hunt for me. Electrical outlet adaptors, young and old, will be miniature dressers and file cabinets, and old, ornate Bakelite plug-ins missing their cords will be the bases of antique tables. Outlet covers I find I will cut up and paint to become streamlined headboards for miniature beds.
10) Orphan Drawers and Cabinet Doors
In this section, the sky is the limit if it were not for our cursed ceiling. An endless parade of possibilities is always on its shelves, and this stream shows no sign of subsiding. Whether old or new, drawers are under-appreciated by the world but have merit. They come in various sizes and can be flipped into shadow boxes, dollhouses, spaceships, dioramas, or other small internal spaces to display small collections or set up scenes. Cutting out doors and windows and adding walls and floors inside can add new dimensions to your little box.
11) Cabinets and Furniture
Sometimes, you must think big to make a diorama of tiny things. After all, what is a diorama without a structure to surround it? Walk the aisles of our cabinet section or journey farther south on our sales floor to our furniture section, and you might find, as I did, that perfect proud glass display case to begin your hobby. Or, you may find that “hollow something” big or small enough to swallow your entire collection. Removing the doors from an unloved–yet oddly perfect—kitchen cabinet could be your answer. Then, light it up with all the choices in LED lights available today. That’s what I did. All my pieces had no home until I found a delaminating, unloved display cabinet with enough shelves to make it essentially an eight-roomed building. Only then did my diorama come to life. And life is what it is all about, right?
12) Plumbing
As a miniaturist, plumbing may not even register on your radar, but there are interesting small things that might just make your day. Look through the little drawers of parts and dig through the tubs of plumbing miscellany to see what materials scratch your creative itch. And there is always more plumbing arriving daily.
13) Lighting
Lighting has many big things, but it also has many small things. Like in plumbing, dig around in all the small organizers. Lighting parts and the tiniest incandescent light bulbs make great miniature lights.
14) Free Area
Lastly, there is our free area. Yes, this is the wild-west of all our departments, the “Last-Chance Gulch” for materials we could not, should not, sell that may still have use for those willing to dig through the galaxies of messes to find them. You can even strap a free cabinet to your head or drag a dented door home, and we won’t stop you. Boxes of miscellaneous parts and pieces often find their next home within hours or minutes. Even on my days off, I have picked up many treasures from the Free area for my miniature needs since nearly every business day at The RE Store adds fresh free items to the shelves. You don’t even have to be a miniaturist to appreciate the constant assortment of hardware and mixed fasteners that flow through that area. So if you do not find that special thing on our sales floor, don’t forget to check the free area. You just might get lucky!
There you have it. The RE Store is a rare, incredible opportunity if you want to get going on your miniatures or other art projects. The RE Store’s materials are low-cost, abundant, and have a low impact on the planet. However, these materials can also be fun due to the hunt, unpredictability, and variety we get. I can’t list the merits of every department, but you get the idea. Explore it, start digging, savor the hunt, and take your treasures home to create and foster the most important thing of all—you!