How to Find Salvage Materials for Home Decorating Projects

Once you salvage quality materials, let your creativity take over.

If you enjoy handcrafting and you advocate recycling, you can combine the two passions -- and save money on materials for creative home decorating projects. While you may get dirty, as well as sweaty or cold, the rewards are great when you pursue salvage.

Instructions

Free Samples

1. Ask local and chain retailers and wholesalers of building materials for access to their discontinued product samples and surplus scraps. Phone first if you are unfamiliar with their business. Wholesale suppliers often place their free surplus outside. Examples of finds are counter and floor tiles to use for an accent table top and scraps of lumber and wood trim to construct a wall shelf.

2. 

   Swatches of discontinued fabric patterns and colors are given away.

   Inquire at custom-order furniture stores about their discontinued fabric swatches, which accumulate year round. These swatches are actually large sample pieces of high quality fabrics that range from 12 to 24 sq. inches or more. Use them to make throw pillows, or let your imagination run wild.

3. 

   Traditional and contemporary patterns can be found in wallpaper books.

   Contact wallpaper stores for wallpaper sample books, which are usually discarded twice per year. Do the merchant a favor by accepting and taking any books he gives you. Take your time browsing them at home. You may find exactly the right pattern to cover a decorative box or picture frame.

Trash to Treasure

1. 

   A functional lamp is a good find.

   Ask your family, friends and neighbors to call you when they do spring cleaning and redecorating, or home renovations. That lamp that nobody else wants or draperies that don't match the new wall color could be yours for the asking. You have nothing to lose by trying to adapt them to suit your style.

2. 

   Consider the salvageable parts of an item as well as the whole.

   Drive or walk through your neighborhood just before scheduled trash pickup and look for discarded pieces of furniture or décor. Salvage a piece of torn or stained area rug to cover a footstool. Rescue a table with a broken leg and purchase inexpensive legs to replace the set, or find some legs from another table that has a ruined top. Collect ugly art because you recognize the value of the frames.

3. 

   The sturdy base of a bird bath can be used as the base for a small table.

   Don't overlook the odd or ridiculous. A good example is a gentleman's valet -- a chair with a coat hanger and tray on the back. Take it apart and you have a handy stool that can be re-covered, and the other parts may prove to be useful for other projects. A cement or iron base of a bird bath can become an interesting table base, once cleaned and refinished. So can an old pillar post.

Tips & Warnings

• Wear comfortable shoes, whether you plan to search indoors or outdoors for salvage.

• Ask people before removing an item from their property, even if it appears to be in the trash pile.