♪♪
-Wander through
the aisles of Earthwise Architectural Salvage in South Seattle,
and you'll discover a treasure trove of design ideas and building materials.
Walls of unhinged doors,
floorboards stacked floor to ceiling, orphaned bathtubs,
cabinets and windows, even the occasional cowboy.
- There's my long lost cowboy from my wild
summer in Jackson, Wyoming.
- All waiting for new homes.
♪ piano keys ♪
These reusable materials are rescued from buildings
that are being demolished, renovated or dismantled,
and Earthwise Salvage has been doing the job for decades.
- My name is Kurt Petrauskas
I am the founder and owner of, Earthwise Architectural Salvage.
I was a general contractor, and I had a hard time
throwing things away that were completely reusable.
I would salvage out all the materials from those projects
and have yard sales on the weekends.
- Before long, Earthwise became a brick-and-mortar store,
and after stops at various locations in Seattle,
they settled in at their current location on Fourth Avenue South.
[ hammer bangs ]
The journey of architectural
salvage begins with a walkthrough of the potential job site.
- I always like doing walkthroughs and now that I'm
semi-retired, I still love coming out to these sites.
This is an old house.
My favorite places?
I love basements.
Oh crap.
And I love attics.
What will they think of next?
How did you get it into the truck?
Isn't it too tall?
- Kurt's son, Paul, is director of acquisitions.
What he does is go out and itemize everything in the house
that has the possibility of reuse.
Then the salvage is scheduled and the work begins.
[ saw grinds and hammer bangs ]
- We're doing a interior salvage today.
It's a 1908 house in North Seattle destined to be torn down, unfortunately.
So we're here just hauling as much as we can out of it.
Save it from going to the landfill.
But luckily, we got three nice unpainted doors that someone's gonna love.
So this fireplace has got some pretty cool tile.
It looks to be antique Batchelder tile.
Look at that!
- Wood and construction debris make up
almost a quarter of the waste stream in Washington.
Around 1.2 million tons annually.
The re-use of recycled building materials not only diverts
that waste, but also conserves the energy and resources
that would be used in manufacturing new materials.
- So the thicker this top layer is, the better.
It gives it more life to be reused later.
- In Seattle, a salvage assessment is required where the work area
is greater than 750ft², or the total cost
is greater than $75,000.
- We get called in by contractors to do that.
It's a no cost type of thing.
We go in and we’ll identify the reusable aspects of it, and then we do
all the reporting necessary to the city before the house gets demolished.
- There wasn't really a whole lot here, except for this awesome
welded steel spiral staircase that we're excited to get out of here.
All right.
All right, set it down.
Awesome.
- In 2012, Earthwise expanded to Tacoma.
- I love wood.
Tacoma is located
in an old mill, and we rented a spot in the mill
and actually utilized the mill facilities to mill up boards and lumber.
And we still do today.
After Tacoma, we opened up an Aberdeen store,
and then we've just recently opened our Kenmore location
with the aid of a King County grant.
- Shoppers
at Earthwise can find wood for every kind of project.
- You could take this part.
You could cut this down... -Like baseboards.
- It's almost exact,
which I couldn't find at another place.
- Live edge slabs and fir flooring.
- Most of the older houses in Seattle are made of fir flooring.
Interestingly enough, fir flooring
has always been one of our top, top things that we salvage.
- I'm from Juneau, Alaska, and we have an old home up there and I'm
looking for some extra lumber, some extra tongue and groove flooring.
- The thing I really enjoy the most is, is how we've made an impact.
I always felt that for every two by four, I kept out of the landfill
and made available for reuse would be one less tree
that would have to be harvested in the woods.
[ tree falling ]
♪♪
- Customers at Earthwise also contribute
to landfill diversion by giving the oddities,
those hard to find pieces
and the reusable building materials, a second chance.
Sometimes they know exactly what they're looking for.
- I am looking for glass panes
in windows to make a greenhouse.
Others come in to browse and get inspired.
- I love actually seeing light bulbs go off in their heads.
I think that's a lot of fun.
There is something for everyone here.
Absolutely.
♪♪
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