Two Kinds of Salvage

Originally this post was going to be all about our night at Salvage One for a charity event called 3H (Home Help and Hope) benefiting a great organization called Facing Forward to End Homelessness. One of my dearest and oldest friends, Courtney, is on their board and always organizes a great event. The organization helps homeless women and children truly transform their lives.

Salvage One is a 60,000 square foot old loft building on the city’s west side. They literally save architectural elements … fireplace mantels, staircases. corbels, bathtubs, bars, church pews, you name it … from the wrecking ball … giving them new life in creative ways. They also have become a very avante garde event space, especially for weddings with an urban edge.

Of course, once we got there, I was kicking myself that I hadn’t brought my real camera … so my iPhone photos will have to do, even though camera phones and low-lighting do not generally like each other.

I grabbed a few photos from their website to give you a general idea …

See those price tags? Yes, everything’s for sale.

I mean seriously, how cool would it be to have wedding here ?

All of these photos are from a gallery on their website featuring the various photographers who have done weddings there. Definitely check it out.

So, my grainy pictures pale in comparison, but I did snap a few of some of the more interesting pieces we encountered.

That’s Dan and I trying to do serious faces outside in the back “garden.” (I can NEVER manage a serious photo face, I always end up smirking.)

And yes, that is a bathtub-turned-fountain behind us.

I think if I were building a house, it would be so cool to come here and pick out an old fireplace mantel to bring in a little history.

What kind of bar is more your style? There’s old-school bar …

Or swingin’ disco bar …

LOVE this mirror …

And this industrial table and sign …

Can you imagine having a house big enough to hold these babies …

Or these …

Or a phone booth?

(Dan had to take a business call.)

Another great way to add some history to a new house … I loved these old knobs and doorknobs.

And I would have loved to take this guy home …

It’s an old aviators globe that you can write on with chalk.

Still thinking about him.

Anyway, that’s where the fun ends. We drove home happily until we exited the expressway and with each block we drove, it began to dawn on us that something had gone terribly wrong. The streets were a war zone, fallen trees at every turn. What had looked like just heavy rain out the windows of Salvage One was apparently an almost tornado that passed through our town. We began to frantically zigzag towards our house to find my wonderful, unflappable niece who was babysitting and wasn’t able to get through to us on our phones sitting in the dark with her Dad, (my terrific brother-in-law) and my 7 year old who was awake but thankfully calm. My 4 year old apparently conked out right at the beginning of the storm and slept straight through. We also discovered our neighbor’s tree laying on our roof.

And as I type this it still sits there. Unfortunately, there are so many trees and huge branches down around town and many of the trees can’t be salvaged. Now, the tree removal trucks have been so swamped that we still haven’t been able to get this one off our roof. Supposedly they will be here in the morning.

We were without power for about 20 hours. Today I just soaked in the coziness of my house with its coffeepot brewing, its TV’s humming and its lamps aglow. Nothing like a long power outage to make you appreciate the comforts of electricity.

A friend suggested I should title a blog post “What To Do When a Tree Falls on your House.”

Well, we still don’t know yet, but stay tuned.

Two Kinds of Salvage

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