Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Preview - An Ode to Recycling
UPDATED - now with pictures.
Little visible progress was made on the workshop last weekend. But the project took a huge step forward.
Searching Craigslist for redwood siding, I found a local ad for a person scrapping his house in preparation for demolition. He’d listed “large, rolling redwood garage doors” and “miscellaneous siding” among the items available. Free. You disassamble.
I showed up and the doors were still there. Also there was old, painted redwood siding covering the whole garage. Under the vinyl siding on the house was more redwood. So I spent the afternoon tearing down the siding and disassembling the doors piece by piece.
Now, you may say, ‘Mouse, what are you thinking? Your time is worth far more than you’ll ever save recovering wood siding, even if it’s free.
The pictures will show you why I do this.
Here’s some carefully selected, high grade “con heart” redwood available at Home Depot. In my opinion, it’s junk wood.
Here’s the 70-year-old, old growth redwood—the kind that people used to slap up on any old garage—which is a true wonder of nature.
Before
After
So. For a couple days hard labor disassembling and de-nailing I get a stack of old wood that most would sneer at. For another couple days work re-milling the back sides through my planer, I get wood that you can’t buy retail at any price.
I don’t know how much the good karma is worth in the greater scope of things, but I’m sure you score a few points for keeping the product of these incredible 300-year-old trees from being ground up by bulldozers. And the joy I get from making new life for this gorgeous wood really is priceless to me.
Let me close with a call to action—if you’re tearing down a house or a shed with old siding or old painted trim or oak floors or ... whatever, please consider putting a free ad up on Craigslist or a cheap ad in your classifieds to let someone who’s interested recover the old wood. They don’t make it like they used to and it’s sad to see it sent unnecessarily to landfills.