Salvaged
I have a bit of an obsession.
Old things. Creaky things. Recycled house parts.
1930’s sink. $25 bucks at Habitat for Humanity – sells for $400 at salvage shops. Beautiful.
A door hinge made in 1910. It could use a bath, but I’m fond of the patina and grime.
Chipped and peeling clawfeet from our circa 1872 tub (the one I hauled from Dallas in a business suit). 
1940’s oven peeks out from beneath a blanket where it lives in the garage temporarily, next to the motorcycle. It is maybe a little crazy to refurbish an old stove. But then, they don’t make ’em like that anymore. Look at those chrome handles! I feel faint.
Why is it I’m determined to build this house from pieces of other peoples’ pasts? Is it the quality of their construction? Or the mystery of their origins?
Every corner of our place is filled with salvaged house parts found in dusty shops and from Craigslist, of course. They just need a house.
What began as an innocent purchase this summer, a symbolic gesture of beginnings when we signed the architect’s contract – has now ballooned into something much, much more. I could happily devote my life to the deconstruction of old places in order to keep them out of landfills and make them beautiful again.
A name scrawled on one of the many doors pulled from an old insane asylum in Brady. True story – I am not making this up. (Cue creepy background music.) Mr….Anderson? Mr. W. William Anderson? (Creepy music gets louder). Who were you?
Ok. Ew. I scared myself.
2 Comments
jennakl
March 3, 20103:29 pm
Buck up Lisa! Quit being a weeny!! (Can you come by tonight and protect me from my haunted doors? Thx).
lisawilson
March 3, 20103:10 pm
Doors from an insane asylum, a rusty old wheelchair sitting in the woods…are you trying to get us to never go out there again?! =)