“Since 1993, our community has donated nearly 50 million pounds of building materials to The RE Store. If you combined all of the lumber, doors, lighting, windows and more that you’ve saved, we could construct nearly 600 homes, roughly half the size of the York Neighborhood here in Bellingham.”
Source: What’s Old Is New Again: A Culture of Reuse in Bellingham – WhatcomTalk
RE Store workers Zack Zuniga, left, and Jake Bollinger strip the inside of the old Community Connections building on Forest Street in Bellingham on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016. The building is being removed and the material recycled to make way for additional parking for the Community Food Co-op store. Philip A. Dwyer pdwyer@bhamherald.com
This week workers from RE Store began deconstructing the former Community Connections building on the corner of East Chestnut and North Forest streets to make way for the parking lot expansion. Once that is complete, work will begin putting in retaining walls and extra parking spaces for the store, which is at 1220 N. Forest St.
Source: Bellingham’s co-op getting started with parking lot expansion | Bellingham Herald
Furniture builder Eberhard Eichner looks at one of the outdoor Little Free Library boxes he makes from reused building material at the REStore in Bellingham, Friday Nov. 1, 2013. Eichner shows customers how to make furniture out of used building materials.
Q: How well has the concept caught on?
A: Amazingly well! More than 10,000 Little Free libraries have been installed nationwide. There are more than two dozen Little Free libraries in Bellingham. If you go on their website you can click on a map for each city and find out where each Little Free Library is located.
Q: So, essentially, people leave books in small, protected bookshelves to share with their neighbors?
A: That’s right. I absolutely love the idea. I’m an avid reader myself, with eclectic tastes; research books, poetry, mysteries.
Q: What are these little libraries made of?
A: The libraries currently on display and available for purchase utilize former upper kitchen cabinets. A second “outer skin” with a roof is put around the existing shape using reclaimed cedar boards, shakes, shingles or other scrap exterior siding material. They’re like little “houses” for books.
via Little Free libraries sprouting in Bellingham | State | The News Tribune.