Mark Raszewski rescues unclaimed materials from businesses when they close or renovate. Nearly all of the items he sells are from Dane County. PHOTO ERICA KRUG
When local businesses or facilities close or get renovated, Raszewski helps to take places apart (recently Mautz Paint, Marling Lumber, UW-Madison’s Agronomy research lab, and Oscar Mayer), salvaging many unclaimed materials.
2075 N. Cambridge Ave. Photo by Dave Reid.
There are a number of city-owned properties that have to be demolished. And using the requirements of its residents preference program, firms going after the deconstruction contracts will have to meet workforce goals and train unemployed or underemployed city residents in this new trade.
Source: First Buildings Deconstructed Under New Law » Urban Milwaukee
Recycled Art Contest Details:
Location:
Habitat for Humanity ReStore East – 420 S. 1st, Milwaukee, WI
ReStore’s 9th Annual Recycled Art Contest shines a light on some of Milwaukee’s resourceful repurposers. The contest challenges the public to create works primarily using the donated product found at ReStore. From artwork to repurposed furniture, the only rule of the contest is the majority of materials must be purchased at ReStore. The winners are determined by your vote!
Source: Recycled Art Contest | Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity
Lester Public Library (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Reclaimed wood is stacked outside the Hamilton building in Two Rivers.
Reclaimed wood plays a growing role in Wisconsin economy. For example, one Rhinelander-based company, Enterprise Wood Products, has worked with reclaimed wood since 2010. The company began using reclaimed wood from the deconstruction of a grain elevator in Superior, and now remanufactures recycled wood into flooring, paneling, stair parts, timbers and more. Much of their current reclaimed wood supply comes from the deconstruction of the Hamilton building in Two Rivers, and reclaimed wood represents up to ha
Source: ‘Unbuilding’ Gives New Life To Old Timber | WisContext
(Image courtesy of the Delta Institute via Extracting Value through Deconstruction)
On Jan. 1, the country’s second deconstruction ordinance went into effect in Milwaukee. In short, the ordinance “provides deconstruction requirements for the removal of Milwaukee’s older and more historic primary dwelling structures.” Deconstruction, in contrast to demolition, is the process of systematically dismantling a structure in an environmentally, socially and economically responsible manner, aiming to maximize the recovery of materials for reuse and recycling. The ordinance targets primary-dwelling structures built in 1929 or earlier. This reason for this specification? The likelihood that those structures will contain old-growth lumber and other valuable building materials.
Source: Deconstruction junction: Milwaukee’s reuse future – The Daily Reporter – WI Construction News & Bids
Austin Ryan (left) and Austin Sensenig haul out pieces from an old barn for their business, Green River Barn Salvage. (Philip Marruffo/pmarruffo@saukvalley.com)
“We are always in contact with anyone who has an excavator or a backhoe,” said Ryan, who lives in Rock Falls. “We can make dinner tables, benches, bookshelves, bird feeders, bird houses, everything.”
Source: Newman grads practice the three R’s: reclaim, repurpose, reinvent | SaukValley.com
Stained glass windows salvaged by WasteCap Resource Solutions. Photo by Amanda Mickevicius.
WasteCap receives a “Raz-List” from the City of Milwaukee. This list includes foreclosed homes and buildings that will be torn down one way or the other. Some are eligible for deconstruction, meaning they torn down by hand by workers, rather than razed by machines. Ogden says the price tag on razing a house is $15,000 charged to the city, so deconstruction saves money for taxpayers. WasteCap also pays the city for materials salvaged from tear-downs.
A view of the Porters building under deconstruction, as seen Sept. 5 at the corner of Sixth Street and Wisconsin Avenue. The Porters building, 301 Sixth St., which started as five separate buildings when connected in 1939 and ultimately expanded to nine buildings and 80,000 square feet, will be “deconstructed” to clear the site for new development, said Micah Waters, who co-owned the former high-end furniture store and owns the property. The property represents nearly an acre in Downtown Racine, located between Sixth and Seventh streets, Wisconsin Avenue to the east and College Avenue to the west.
Stan Sevenich was the lone opposition vote on the council. “One unique thing about the city of Menasha is that we’ve retained a number of our historical buildings. It kind of gives that certain character that surrounding communities have lost. I’d like to see us be fortunate to continue to have that,” he said.
The developers plan to file the paper work to begin the process to demolish the building right away. The hope is to begin construction on the new project by this fall.
via Former Hotel Menasha Green Lighted For Demolition – WBAY.
Marta Hansen’s journey from being a public school music educator to innovative small business owner is quite the story. She received her degree from UW Madison in music education and taught elementary and middle school students outside of Dallas, Texas for many years. Upon returning to her native Wisconsin Marta began teaching herself the disappearing craft of tuning pianos. She perfected her trade by shadowing retiring tuners, self-study, and endless practice. The Piano Gal began receiving old unsalvageable pianos and parts from various clients. Not knowing what to do with her accumulated pieces, suddenly it all became clear with a Pinterest post of a piano-turned-desk. This crafty lady got straight to work, turning her garage into a thriving workshop and thus began the journey of saving pianos from landfills, one at a time.
Her new shop nestled on the cozy Main Street in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin opened in November and boasts pitch-perfect pianos, sheet music and a beautiful array of repurposed pieces. In The Piano Gal Shop, keys splay out as vast clocks, teardrop hammers dangle from necklaces, and a hollowed harpsichord hangs on the wall as a stunning bookcase. Her self-driven nature manifested into high quality craftsmanship as seen in the many items in her shop. Sitting at a gorgeous harpsichord coffee table she passionately tells me her favorite pieces to create are the vanities, bookshelves, and other larger furniture because she gets to break out the power tools and innovate. She adds that clocks seem to be her current obsession and I know I would love to have her latest work with gold hands pointing to circling hammers. While touring her workshop in the back of her store she explained that the treble strings, wooden action parts, and pedals seem to be the hardest parts to use, but that does not seem to slow her down. I was also introduced to Betty her 1931 McPhail baby grand piano that she is in the process of restoring to bring it back to its original glory. Surrounding Betty were keys, hammers, and piano skeletons that even had me itching to create.
Marta’s main goal is to harvest the piano, as her husband puts it. Her plethora of pieces show she is not having trouble coming up with something for every part. When she hits a snag she calls on local artist and good friend, Carrie Castree, to come up with something new like her sheet music roses made with stems from those tricky action parts. Through a mix of donated and thrifted sheet music, vintage A-tude magazines, all those piano parts and plenty of ingenuity, these artists are creating some remarkable pieces.
Marta’s first goal is to save any piano for its original form to be enjoyed in the living room for decades to come. However, if you come see her face light up as she talks about the store’s items it is apparent that she gets great satisfaction seeing each piece become something new and circumventing the trash pile. Craftsladies like these are a great asset to any neighborhood and we are happy to have her in town. If you cannot visit her brick and mortar shop check out her Etsy and help her save the pianos!
Contact info: Marta Hansen
395 E. Main Street Sun Prairie, WI 53590
608-318-2677
Several Midwestern cities have used adaptive reuse to their advantage. In Milwaukee, the site of the old Pabst brewery is gradually being redeveloped, part of which includes the new Brewhouse Inn & Suites boutique hotel. Indianapolis is currently converting the old Bush Stadium minor league ballpark into an apartment complex called Stadium Lofts.
via Opportunities develop through adaptive reuse | REJournals.com.
Deconstruction of the 16 floor Northwestern Mutual office building has begun and is expected to be completed by the end of August. Over 75% of all materials will be recycled with some of them being donated to various projects in the area. The office building will be replaced with a new structure that should be completed in 2017.
Employees Jayne Kohel and Andy Shotliff hand sand the new bar at Appleton Beer Factory, 603 W. College Avenue in downtown Appleton, on Nov. 11. The wood is reclaimed material from the building’s floor upstairs. / Sharon Cekada/Post-Crescent Media
The building at 603 W. College Ave. no longer looks like the old 1940’s Schreiter’s Auto Supply. It was gutted and refashioned into a rough-edged industrial/vintage feel microbrewery with a pub room, beer hall and two-story, gleaming stainless steel brewing operation.
The $900,000 venture is owned by a group of more than 30 investors, many of whom have also put “sweat equity” into the place by rolling up their sleeves.
“I haven’t had a day off since April,” Fogle said. “I’m not complaining. There’s no place I’d rather be.”
Jeff and Leah Fogle got married two years ago in the center of the building after it was gutted. They figured they were also marrying the brewery, so the setting was appropriate. The building’s real estate broker performed the ceremony
“We got married where the tap tower is and that was on purpose,” Fogle said. “That’s the epicenter of the place.”
via The Buzz: Beer factory finally near | Post-Crescent Media | postcrescent.com.
Paul Morrison, owner of Wood Cycle of Wisconsin, has been turning potentially wasted wood from local trees into beautiful hardwood flooring since May and selling it to Habitat ReStore West in Madison.
Malm said, “Most of the buildings have been here about a hundred years which means they are made out of the largest timbers you can imagine.”
Instead of using heavy equipment for the tear down workers take the buildings down by hand.
Workers remove nails from wood and then the salvaged materials can be sold.
Malm works closely with American Relics of Wausau to find buyers for salvaged wood, vintage doors and windows and rustic metals.
“Some of the materials have gone to New Zealand others are here in the U. S. and some is one its way to Japan,” said Malm.
via Green building demolition in Merrill – WAOW – Newsline 9, Wausau News, Weather, Sports.
Ann liked the fact that the lumber would be used, but letting the barn go pained her. She could see all the effort that went into the building’s construction. Details such as the markings on the hand-hewn beams were evidence of all the painstaking, backbreaking work.
“It hurt because at one time it was a beautiful building,” Ann said. “But Mother Nature takes its toll, I guess.”
…
No one knows for sure how many wood-framed and stone-foundation barns there were in Marathon County at the peak of the family farm era, or how quickly they are disappearing. But according to an agriculture census survey, in 2007 the county was home to 1,267 standing timber-framed barns built before 1960.
via Wanted: Wisconsin’s lovely old timber barns | Sheboygan Press | sheboyganpress.com.
Demolition of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay chancery in 2010 galvanized historic preservation advocates in the area to seek new protections for historic structures. / File/Press-Gazette Media
Aiming to protect Green Bay’s historic structures, city officials are considering slowing the process of issuing permits for building demolitions.
Under a plan proposed by the city’s Historic Preservation Commission, owners of properties more than 50 years old would have to wait 15 days to obtain a demolition permit while the commission chairman considers the building’s historic value.
If a property is deemed historic, the commission would have the authority to block demolition.
Read the entire article via Demolition may be slowed on historic Green Bay buildings | Green Bay Press Gazette | greenbaypressgazette.com.