Once More, With Savings

Homeowners increasingly are selecting used building materials to make projects look better, cost less and save resources.

On a sizzling Saturday, inside a toasty warehouse, Eunice Youmans walks past the vintage fireplace mantels, unhinged doors and light fixtures at Community Forklift, a nonprofit store in Prince George's County that peddles reusable housing materials.

In one hand is her 10-month-old son, in the other a tape measure. Her two young daughters trail behind her like ducklings. She zeroes in on a used 48-by-17-inch kitchen cabinet.

It needs some work. It has been sitting for months. One door is chipped. The white paint is old. She plans to fix it up, refinish it and put it in her dining room.

The price is $50. She gets it for $30.

"It's much cheaper and good-quality stuff," the Cheverly resident says of the store's products, extolling the benefits of buying used rather than going to the large home stores. "I come here all the time."

In a disposable society, where new is often equated with better, where big-box stores such as Home Depot have become the temple of home improvers, a growing number of homeowners are turning to reclaimed or reused products. In the past five years, the number of reused-material stores around the country has doubled, from 150 to 300, according to the Building Materials Reuse Association.

Driven by economics, environmental concerns, aesthetics or old-fashioned quality -- or all the above -- do-it-yourself homeowners, as well as contractors, handymen and landlords, are buying construction products at a fraction of the retail cost -- such things as marble countertops, cast-iron radiators, sunken bathtubs, toilets, sinks and solid five-panel pine doors. Some come from homes built more than a century ago, some from new-home construction sites.

Sometimes there's even historic value: The Community Forklift recently landed marble from a federal building and a chandelier and several mahogany doors from a penthouse at the Watergate.

"Most people are proud of themselves for recycling cans and recycling newspaper and buying bags that are made out of recycled plastic, but people don't realize that they can recycle entire houses and that they can buy recycled products for their homes," said Ruthie Mundell, outreach director for Forklift, which opened in November 2005.

"When we first started, we had probably five customers a day. Now we probably have 150 sales a day," she said. "People are finding out about the concept. They realize how much it makes sense financially and environmentally."

In the Washington region, the Building Materials Reuse Association and Habitat for Humanity's Habitat ReStore Web site together list 60 for-profit and nonprofit operations that collect or sell reusable and reclaimed products: three in the District, 17 in Maryland and 40 in Virginia.

Nonprofit organizations such as Community Forklift, the Loading Dock and Second Chance in Baltimore, and Habitat ReStores in Virginia and Maryland get all or most of their products from donations, many of which come from homes that have been torn down or "deconstructed" instead of being demolished by bulldozers and wrecking balls.