This Kitchen is Totally Recycled

kitchen chronicles Vintage wooden pins

An antique scale as a fruit bowl!

this kitchen is totally recycled Decorating with found objects and repurposed materials—that’s one way to get creative in the kitchen. photographs by Lincoln Barbour Written by leilani marie labong styled by frances bailey

kitchen chronicles

My attitude is, if something’s broken, turn it into something else.

—Shannon Quimby

T Shannon in her reclaimed, remodeled kitchen

ruth be told, the brand-new kitchen in Shannon Quimby’s Portland, OR, home isn’t new at all. It’s full of things the designer/salvage expert and her husband rescued from a rundown bungalow that was on the property when they purchased it in 2007.

Before knocking down that dilapidated house to build their new one, they saved anything and everything they thought could be reused— doors, floors, windows, even beer bottles! Those materials, along with other earth-friendly finds, like recycled concrete and glass countertops and sustainable handmade tile, all come together in this one-of-a-kind kitchen.

That’s an old bifold door on the ceiling.

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The countertops are recycled concrete and glass.

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1 Handmade chandelier

3 Open storage

5 Island

Eleven bottles of beer and wine hang from the ceiling. Before the old house was torn down, Shannon found them strewn in a hedge. A mason cut off the bottoms, then Shannon spray-painted them and strung bulbs with cord to create a bottle chandelier.

After installing a mini fridge under the countertop, Shannon still had space to fill. Easy fix: Build some shelves next to the fridge. “Now that our vintage bowls are out in the open, we actually use them,” she says.

The 8-foot-by-4-foot island top combines Douglas fir wood from the original house and scrap wood left over from the new home. The side planks were salvaged from the old house too, and Shannon found the corbels at a garage sale.

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4 Cabinets

6 Floors

The custom hard rock maple cabinetry is painted with ecofriendly no-VOC paint (Air

by Yolo Colorhouse) and has mismatched pulls. “You’ll find great pulls at salvage yards, but maybe not as many as you need, so just mix them up,” says Shannon.

The planks of reclaimed California chestnut wood from greendepot.com range in length from 12 inches to 5 feet. “It was all puzzled together,” says Shannon. She had the floor sealed with sustainable, hard-wax oil by Osmo to make it easy to clean with a steam mop.

The salvaged spruce table is from urban timberworks.com. Shannon painted its base with a mix of paints from past projects—for a similar look, try Rekindle by True Value.

The chairs were $7 each at a rummage sale.

hgtv magazine 143

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7 Under-cabinet canisters Shannon’s grandfather used to store nuts and bolts in cabinet-mounted jars like these, so she adapted his workshop idea for her kitchen. She used an ice pick to make holes in the lids, then attached them to the underside of the cabinet with screws. For a step-by-step how-to, go to hgtv.com/mason-jar-storage.

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8 Wooden pin display A ledge above the stove holds a collection of vintage bowling and juggling pins. The antique “groceries” sign fit the space as is.

9 Flowerpot fixtures “I wanted something more creative than metal can lights. I remembered these pots I had and thought, perfect!” says Shannon. She covered the rims with pom-pom trim, threaded light cord through each drainage hole, and used Devcon 5 Minute Epoxy Gel to adhere them to the ceiling. Small 40-watt bulbs hang from the cords and sit inside the glass jars ($6 each, Target) filled with wine corks—they have also held golf balls and ornaments. They still unscrew so bulbs can easily be changed.

10 Beverage fridge A mini fridge covered with screwed-on slats of flooring from the old house holds drinks for their 11-year-old son, Chase, to grab on the go.

144 hgtv magazine

for shopping sources, see page 176.