Recycler's Home

We met a person this weekend who lives in a home that is made from all recycled and salvaged materials. Well, she did win a KitchenAid stand mixer and grain attachment from participating in a recipe contest. The mixer was the second place prize.
          She also runs an antique/secondhand store out of this location, and she is brilliant at presenting the items she has for sale. She couldn't stand the way people would paw through the books (many publisher's bindings) so she began wrapping them in bond paper and attaching a photograph of the title so people didn't need to open them until they were certain they were interested in purchasing.
          She has many interesting stories about dumpster diving (once she got 500 dozen eggs). She says you would not believe what people throw out, and I'm not going to contradict her. Another friend and dumpster diver recently came home with a relatively new Apple computer.
          Not the least of these interesting stories she has is that she will be raffling off her building / business / contents within the next year as her doctor has told her Alzheimer's disease is progressing to the point where she will not be able to live independently much longer. Now this sounded like the Robert Duvall film "Get Low." She is having a huge sale of her antiques/secondhand this weekend and I'll be going over there tomorrow to help her get started on evaluating her book collection, in the event she has some collectible/valuable titles among her collection. She loves books and takes such good care of things. In return I get to review/purchase her ephemera collection pre-sale.
          I hope she'll allow me to share some of her stories, as she has many compelling and colorful items to share. She has been a lay-pastor, a truck driver, a chef, and has childhood stories that are charming and hair raising in equal parts.
          If nothing else, perhaps she will allow me to post her guidelines to the house/business raffle. Will be back tomorrow with news/pictures...
******* Update *******
Stopped by on Wednesday with a few photos / books to return to her and wound up staying about half the day. Went through the books which were interesting but no big surprises. Showed her how to set up a blog, and organize her photos. She already has experience selling online using Craigslist, so I think she's going to be putting her new laptop to work!
          The walls have been papered over with vintage magazine pages, and the front room she covered with cloth and paper trim. My photo of that turned out blurry, but at least I caught a detail of the hallway, (lightswitch and battery station) so you can see the paperwork!
          Her kitchen is very interesting... she has Jenn-Aire gas range/cooktop and oven, and though you can't see very well behind the dish storage divider, the refrigerator, counter are covered in recycled barn wood. The dining room table is actually a recycled/refinished barn door. Everything has been repurposed and done quite well.

  

I will be helping her to self-publish a book she has written, and I'm sure you'll hear about that project next spring!