Recycle: Renew and Reuse

A house which has stood through several hurricanes (including the evil twin hurricanes, Francis and Jean, in 2004) and sheltered several generations must be made of stern stuff. This reasoning led to the decision to reject the advice of some architects to "scrape it away and build new". Our decision was to renovate instead. It turned out that the "stout little house" had much in it worth saving.

Here is a list of our effort to recycle.

The first order of business was to remove all decorative elements that could be reused, if not in this house by someone else. These included the lucite drawer pulls, stained glass windows, leaded glass windows, spiral staircase and kitchen cabinets and ceiling fans.

Left in place as much of the original landscaping as possible.

All the sand set pavers for the driveway and pool deck were taken up by hand and stored on pallets for later use. That is about 14 pallets of material.

Chicago brick taken from old fireplace; stored for reuse.

Left in place as much of the concrete slabs, blocks, beams and structural columns as possible.

Re-used all 2x lumber from he old structure in the new construction.

Left the 1 1/2" furring strips on block walls.

Carefully removed the 6"x12" cedar beams, planed and sanded them for re-use as the supporting beams for the sleeping porch and the front balcony. [Photo]

Recycled all wire, copper and aluminum from the old house.

Removed the solar panels for sale.

Removed the electric shutters for sale. [Photo]