SALVAGE STARS Who to know and where to go for one-of-a-kind home goods
By Ross Boissoneau Reduce? Sure. Reuse? You betcha? Recycle? Only as a last resort. So how about rebuild? Or repaint, or refinish, or renovate? If you’re like the legions of people who saw their increased stay-at-home time as an opportunity to redecorate, refresh, or renovate said home, you likely tackled at least one home improvement project since the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States. (According to survey results published by Statistica in July, 76 percent of 1,083 respondents stated they had made at least one improvement to their home’s interior or exterior between March and July 2020.) Whether the coming spring or the satisfaction of completing that one pandemic is motivating you to tackle more, here are five secret weapons you should have in your home renovation toolbox. FOR FIXER-UPPER FANS “It’s mostly repurposed wood and metal,” said Lisa Monson of the variety of goods and their uses at Antiquities Market. The spacious store in the Warehouse District in Traverse City holds a hoarder’s dream: chairs, tables, cabinets. Wood corbels. Doors and more doors, along with oddities like a latex glove mold made of aluminum, ammo holders, olive buckets, industrial light pendants — the list goes on and on. The store is the brainchild of Louise McDermott, a Traverse City native who now
winters in Phoenix. That’s where she has the original Antiquities Market, a massive 35,000 square-foot facility. The Traverse City version will soon encompass 9,000 square feet as a result of taking over the entire building. That will take place in early May, with a new shipment of goods from the Phoenix store helping to fill the new space, formerly home to Traverse City Bike & Brew and, before that, Inside Out Gallery. Among the most popular items are tables. Everything from side tables to round and rectangular dining tables, with other oddities being pressed into service as same. Folding tables are particularly hot. The No. 1 seller is stools, particularly a set of bar stools, while antique breadboards from Europe are freshly stamped, then One of Monson’s favorite reclamation projects is the conversion of a battered canoe into a light fixture, the canoe suspended upside down. Hope you’ve got plenty of space. BARN MARKET RISING AGAIN? Across town, Tammy Simerson’s Red Dresser offers a somewhat smaller, more curated and ever-changing collection. She originally opened her shop of new and old farmhouse finds and refinished furniture in Traverse City’s Warehouse District in 2009, but her wares have drawn such a following from customers and other collectors with eclectic and refurbed goods to sell that she’s moved and expanded three times, ultimately ending up in her fourth — and according to Simerson, final
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— location on South Airport Road. She also hosts the Red Dresser Barn Market, (usually) a twice-a-year, multiday outdoor market where she and others showcase a giant array of goods. Originally located outside her Warehouse District store, it then moved to a relative’s barn outside Kingsley (hence the name). When it outgrew that location, in 2019, she moved it to the Northwestern Michigan Fairgrounds. Typically drawing crowds of hundreds, the market was canceled last spring and this fall. This year it is tentatively scheduled for May 28– 29, pending approval from the Grand Traverse County Health Department. So far, she’s received approval from Blair Township and the Fairgrounds, but with the vagaries of the pandemic, she’s not yet made a final decision. That will come closer to the date, she says. In the meantime, the shop is open and has hardly missed a beat; last year was Red Dresser’s busiest year ever, she says. “It became more popular because of the pandemic. The furniture stores are 12 to 16 weeks out, can’t get furniture in, and people are looking toward vintage [pieces] as an option.” OLD HOME, NEW MINI-MANSION At Bay Area Recycling for Charities, owner Andy Gale is taking things a step further, creating actual buildings from various parts and pieces of other builds. “A guy came into our office and said, ‘Can you recycle a house?’ That was two-and-a-half years ago,” says Gale.
Clockwise from top left: Antiquities Warehouse Deer Creek Junk A blue dresser at Red Dresser Inside a BARC Life Pod, a temporary solution for homelessness — or an overflowing home. BARC Life Pod exterior The BARC HQ
For Gale, it was an opportunity to return to his construction roots. “I was in the industry 20 years. It’s cool to get back into it a little bit.” Now Gale and his crew will deconstruct a house rather than having it bulldozed, and use the pieces to create sheds, art or yoga studios, or other tiny buildings, along with other projects. “Our De/Reconstruction (service) will take down regular houses and build them into little houses, along with picnic tables, planting boxes — all from old building materials,” he says. Gale hired two carpenters who worked at the late lamented Odom Reuse in Grawn, and supplements the crew with labor from SEEDS and YouthWork from Child and Family Services of Northwestern Michigan. They will carefully deconstruct a building in a panelized format. “I know how to slice and dice,” says Gale, which allows them to capture and utilize the energy already expended in the initial construction. They then reconstruct, repairing or filling in holes where necessary. The results can range from the 100-square-foot Life Pod or Open Air (the latter a great play structure, potting shed, or
