Thursday, October 21, 2010

Reuse challenge

I want to start the LBC blog by laying out a friendly challenge to readers- how many times can we reuse building materials? I'll start with the short story of some 2x4's that I've been working with of late.

A few months ago, I spotted them protruding from a dumpster, with nails and drywall screws seemingly defending the lot from any other fate but the landfill. But it was not to be. After a careful extraction, and quick cleaning of hardware, I found an immediate use for them as temp ledger boards and again (once screwed together), as the jacks used to temporarily carry the weight of a modest shed roof, thus allowing me to repair select parts of rotted structural components below.

When I was done with the wall rebuild, I cut them into 44" lengths for use in heavy duty warehouse racking.

Then I got a call from a friend who owns a local restaurant in Little Five Points who was looking for relatively short lengths of 2x4's for use in a Halloween parade float. So he came by the shop, loaded the lot of material (about 40 of them) and after being painted black, they made a brief and brilliant appearance as the pickets in a faux baby crib.

So, I've got these 2x4's at five uses (so far)- original user, ledger, jacks, parade, and racking.

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