Beyond a Different Shade of Green

Story Planted On June 12, 2008

By Cole Cheney

Among trend setters such as Chanel, Juice Couture, and Tiffany & Co., architectural salvage yards seem more-than-slightly out of place. Yet as one of the original green industries, the salvagers unknowingly walked the "green runway" before any eco-friendly style existed. This unintended inspiration stems from any salvage yards ability to compress "reuse, reduce and recycle" into their specialty: "refurbish". While "salvagers", "repurposers" and "refurbishers" commonly receive affiliations with car mufflers and scrap metal, niche consumers have long perused architectural salvage stores for furniture, architecture and art because of practicality, sustainability or a retro look. Going green may not be their top priority, yet it is hard to label a garbage preventing industry anything but eco-friendly.

While age-smoothed wood and rusted iron hardly follow the solar panel, organic cotton and granola components of the "green" persona, the salvage process is the "ultimate green", said Don Short, owner of West End Architectural Salvage- located in Des Moines, Iowa.

"So little resource is required to use things that have already been created," Short said. "A door can be reused as a door again or can be turned into a headboard or the back of a wine bar. What were once tin ceiling tiles can be fashionably repurposed into texturized table tops."

In the world of salvaging, verbiage plays a crucial role. "Refurbished" denotes a painted, texturized or restored item that operates as originally planned. "Salvaging" is the act of hunting down these items. Creativity strikes hardest, however in "Repurposing". During this process, items originally intended for one function take on a whole different use. Sandblasted and painted cutting boards form hanging collages while once-decorative stone mantels are chiseled down into chairs at the hands of an expert like Short.

Opening a new warehouse with 4 floors devoted to practical and artistic antiques last year, Short maintains a changing inventory through interaction with five fellow dealers from around the country. He predicts that as the next generation of mass consumers begin to settle down in homes, their increasingly classic and retro tastes will lead to a spike in salvage yard sales. This antique fondness stems from mainstream disenchantment with the "plastic society", says John Jacobs, Owner of Architectural Antiquities, a Maine-based online salvage business that caters to national and international repurposed-furniture connoisseurs.

"Because of the amount of time and effort we put into each item to ensure its quality, prices between new and used architecture and furniture hardly vary," said Jacobs. "While our pieces are not for everyone, I find that most of our consumers understand and appreciate the quality and character behind each item."

Personality radiates from modern architectural salvage yards, as items are scavenged, refurbished and sold in a variety of different ways. Typically dealers and store owners scout locally for buildings due for demolition. After haggling with destruction crews over which items can be removed from sites (due to legal, safety and insurance reasons), random door frames, ceiling tiles and cabinets are removed before artisans paint, sandblast and contort old pieces into stylized items. While the antique pricing runs around the same rate as new furniture, certain appearances and sentiments cannot be imitated in modern furniture factories. Aesthetics aside, some environmental advocates see repurposing benefiting consumers, businesses and the environment.

"We like to encourage any form of 'Reuse, Reduce, Recycle,'" said Chris Whitley, Officer of Public Affairs for the Midwest region of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "While we don't finance private efforts of salvage yards, we certainly support a properly run salvage store that returns trash-bound items into the stream of consumer use."

Though labels like "architectural salvage", "repurpose" and "refurbish" add a flair to the industry, the business is no recent epiphany said both Short and Jacobs.

"We aren't ground-breaking by any means," Short said. "This is something humans have done for thousands of years. This is just a new and different way to look at sustainability."