Portlandia 3 - The Rebuilding Center

[darkemeralds]

As the Rebuilding Center's bumper sticker says, "I love that place!"

It's a sprawling warehouse space on North Mississippi Avenue filled with, basically, used house-parts. If you're remodeling or demolishing, you donate the lumber, windows, doors, plumbing fixtures, appliances, flooring, hardware, cabinets--anything, really, that would have otherwise wound up in the landfill--to the RBC, and then they sort it out and sell it.

Besides employing quite a few people from the neighborhood, the RBC is the financial backbone of community services organization Our United Villages.

The RBC also runs a deconstruction contracting business, which you can hire to take down your structure in a way that conserves most of the materials and responsibly disposes of the rest.

It occurred to me this morning that The Rebuilding Center might have the 2x2 lumber I need to (start to) finish my Roman shades, so off I went in the blowing snow and the suddenly-it's-winter east wind to see what I could find.



The Rebuilding Center made their new buildings out of some of their inventory:


They have a cobb entryway:




The place is full of windows:


...and old sash-weights from windows:


Apparently a school donated some stuff:


I was headed to this warehouse:


When I found what I needed (three lengths of 2x2 lumber--I picked through the selection for the straightest ones, and they were already primed), I handed over a whopping three bucks, and then Tharrell there urged me to bring my bike in so he could help me figure out how best to transport my bargain safely home.

Ellie Rose, the cashier, was so taken with my bike that she wanted a picture, so I had her take one on my phone too.


Total Portland cred: riding home from the Rebuilding Center in the wind and snow with lumber taped to your bike.

Comments

[bluemeridian]

Something I would absolutely expect to find in Portland and rather jealous we don't have a place nearly so awesome here. :D (We do have reuse variations, but that one looks to be a significant step up in size and items available.) Not to mention the design of the building itself!

[darkemeralds]

I've been hearing from people that there are similar places operating in other towns. It's good to know! Construction and demolition debris is a huge landfill problem, and so much of what houses are made of might be reusable.

The Rebuilding Center's buildings are fairly new--they started out much smaller and were able to expand in place. It's really a fun place to go look around.

[ruric]

Oh that place looks awesome.

We have lots of architectural salvage places in London (which tend to charge a lot for stuff), and there are a lot of charities where you can donate old furniture etc which is recycled and distributed to those less well off. But we're not quite so on the ball as this. There's a project just getting off the ground in Brixton called The Remakery which is aiming to do something similar but on a smaller scale. *G*

[darkemeralds]

I suspect that what would qualify as "architectural salvage" gets skimmed off the top in an outfit like the Rebuilding Center. There's another place in town that carries the cast-iron clawfoot bathtubs and iron pillars and marble mantelpieces. But hey, recycling is recycling!

The Remakery is a great name! The RBC started out much smaller, and has only expanded to this big operation in the last three or four years. I think as tipping fees rise (along with the value of all kinds of scrap, and new lumber), this type of operation will take off in more places.

[ranunculus]

San Francisco has had a recycling center for years. At first it had lumber and choice odds and ends like clawfoot bathtubs, but as time went on it began to focus more and more on doors. At the end it became a door manufacturer.
Toward the end of that place another one opened. It is down on landfill in an awful part of town, with dilapidated buildings, but they have all -kinds- of stuff. I once found brand new washing machine hoses there, along with lighting fixtures, old tools, beads from a 60's style bead curtain...

[darkemeralds]

I'm certainly going to go to the Rebuilding Center first from now on for all my odds-and-ends project needs around the house and garden. It's close by, they're super-nice, and stuff is cheap.

Interesting that the business in your area morphed that way. The one here has gradually become more involved in the deconstruction business--actually promoting hand deconstruction rather than the wrecking-ball approach.

[kis]

It looks a wonderful mix of fairytale and practical.

[darkemeralds]

Good description!

[owzers]

I love your shoes, gloves, and scarf!!!! That's an awesome pic of you honey! And the front of that store is wonderfully Hobbitish!!!!

[darkemeralds]

It is Hobbit-ish, isn't it? Very earthen and flowing.

I get a lot of use out of those crazy shoes.