Salvaged materials from century old houses for sale.

If you're looking for anything - legal sale, not scrapped

http://www.annarbor.com/news/want-to-buy-a-piece-of-the-city-place-houses-ypsilanti-based-company-selling-salvaged-items/


This is the type of thing the city should do before they demolish any house.

Umm they already do... and have for some time. One of the larger issues is that scrappers goet the good stuff first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT5-OKqGHbg
http://www.yndc.org/news-media/group...-busters-event
http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/d...ion081010.aspx
http://www.aswdetroit.org/deconstruction.htm

Materials Unlimited does nice work. We picked up a few doorknobs from the Book Cadillac as Christmas presents last year. They also had the ornate brass elevator doors that I was was salivating over. Last time we were there they had an entire rooms worth of paneling and built-in furniture, all meticulously disassembled and labelled for reassembly.

It's sad to see these old houses come down, but at least they are being recycled.

DetroitPlanner, I was thinking the City of Detroit. None of those links you provided seems to indicate city owned properties, just county or other. Does Detroit actually do more than just bulldozed everything under? All I've ever seen are contracted heavy equipment crews on city demolitions.

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Originally Posted by JBMcB

Materials Unlimited does nice work. We picked up a few doorknobs from the Book Cadillac as Christmas presents last year. They also had the ornate brass elevator doors that I was was salivating over. Last time we were there they had an entire rooms worth of paneling and built-in furniture, all meticulously disassembled and labelled for reassembly.

It's sad to see these old houses come down, but at least they are being recycled.

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Yup, I can imagine how those elevator doors can create a stir when you oppose them to all the bland stuff we are used to seeing nowadays. I hope Michigan gets to keep most of the salvaged stuff that is dismantled. It would also be nice to witness a project like Michigan Central or a major rehab reusing the valuable materials from various sources, depending on stylistic accuracy. Maybe even new projects that would incorporate said materials and elements.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lilpup

DetroitPlanner, I was thinking the City of Detroit. None of those links you provided seems to indicate city owned properties, just county or other. Does Detroit actually do more than just bulldozed everything under? All I've ever seen are contracted heavy equipment crews on city demolitions.

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The City is not the only landowner of these properties. The county owns lots of them through the foreclosure process. The City is the tearer downer of last resort. Many of the buildings on the City's tear down list have been vacant for years stripped and abandoned. If the wood is exposed to the elements or rotted, you can't reuse it for construction as it is warped.