Upcycling Found Materials

We went into this renovation knowing that we wanted to be as environmentally friendly as our budget would allow, but it never occurred to us how many materials we could re-use from the demo work.

Most of the walls contained old clapboard behind the drywall:

The crew left us a whole pile to work with:

And we plan to re-use this material in the bathrooms where we were going to install (new) bead-board.  Picture is sanded and painted like this:

We could even go crazy and do chair rails like one of my favorite Charleston home designers, New World Byzantine:

Or not worry about new kitchen cabinets

I love the rustic look of this, but I want it outside on a barn door not in my kitchen.

These old beams that were used to frame the walls would be awesome for a farm table:

or maybe a door on a runner

 The Brooklyn Home Company

My husband and I walk over to the site on most nights to check out the progress.  There isn't much to see this week since the foundation guys are working on leveling the floors.  They did leave us a pile of debris they found under the house (wish I took a pic, but it is dark out) and my 5 year old child husband took such delight in rummaging through the dirt and retrieving all the old glass bottles.  While I think these are very cool, I find no need in keeping them.  Maybe it is my fear of becoming a subject on Hoarders after we moved all our crap (yes, it was ALL crap) into storage 2 weeks ago.  I'm kind of digging this light feeling of not having many possessions.  I could "lose" the key to the POD and be happy to start fresh.