One man's trash is another man's treasure

Salvage and sustainable building practices

I have been scouring the web for ways not only to de-clutter our lives but also ways to leave the world in a better condition than when we found it. After all I am a good boy scout. We have all heard we should recycle and victory gardens have been popular, but have you ever considered that the things we throw away could be used by someone else? 

For example, one of our friends Carmina, saw that we were replacing our old rotted fence at our house. I blindly just was putting the panels that I took down to the curb for bulk trash day. Being someone that is frugal Carmina sent her husband over and took the panels from the curb and decided to reuse them as the main structure of their chicken coop. What I saw as trash turned out to be her treasure. I don't know why I didn't think of this before as I have done projects myself with other peoples trash (see my pictures at the bottom). It just never occurred to me that these rotten and ugly fence panels could be REUSED as part of another structure. 

This really got me thinking. If you are doing a project why not go and find something that can be reused and or re-purposed. Not only can you come up with a way better use than the dump for these materials, or being frugal,  but you are being the epitome of  green living. Let's face it we tend to throw away perfectly good items because we want newer, better, or are just tired of something. That doesn't make it junk.

So what have I done that reused "junk" items and turned them into something wonderful. Well one thing that popped into my head was from buying old furniture and recovering it.  

I also made a pallet wall from old pallets we got FOR FREE, from a company down the street.

And my wife really did a great job of taking an old ugly brass chandelier and turning it into something special with just a little paint and some new bulbs.

I guess the point of all this is to say that we are all wasteful in our own way but if we do just a bit of searching I am sure there are other ways to build, re-purpose, and otherwise recycle things that would have otherwise gone to a landfill where it does no body any good. You can do something as simple as melting old crayons into fun gifts like  SomArtMoma has done.

Or you can go to the extreme like Brad Kittel of Texas Tiny Houses has done and tear down old barns and houses and reuse the materials to rebuild new homes.

Times are tough all over and we need to try to make the best of everything we have. Let's take a long hard look at things before we just discard them into oblivion. Make something beautiful out of junk.

What ideas do you have or seen that could inspire others to start re-purposing ok used things? Leave a comment below.


Gary McCoy is broker and owner of Tartan Real Estate Services in DFW Texas. Broker license number #0588837. Any opinions in this article are just that, opinions. If you have specific questions or concerns please contact us at 877-498-7323.