apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We have the Materials Resource Center in Ronkonkoma NY. It is very much like the place described above. Art teachers like myself, love this place!

We used to have something like this in Nanaimo. It closed down years ago, but used to have misprinted stickers, repurposed foam, paper scraps from art deco projects. It was a crafter's dream! I miss it a lot.

I've lived in Durham for one month and have been to the Scrap Exchange almost every weekend. It's fantastic for odds and ends of tile, crown moulding, and other materials for the home.

YES! I was at the Scrap Exchange in Durham visiting my friend who goes to Duke grad school (Hi Meg!). I picked up some half-used interoffice envelopes which I'll turn into gift tags and an awesome vintage photo from the 50s for 5 cents!

I could only dream of a place like this in NYC (where I live). Any suggestions?

This looks like the coolest place! I wish we had one here!!!
http://www.notyourgoddess.blogspot.com/

In Toronto, there is a place called " Arts Junktion" and they have all kinds of of stuff for FFFRRREEEE!! Its amazing, its in the basement of a school so it's only accessible during the school year. It's inside Ossington Old Orchard Public School, just in case anyone is interested.

oh, the scrap exchange! I got some nice wallpaper and some excellent baking pans.

OH wow, heaven on earth!

There used to be a store like this in Baltimore, adjacent to the Power Plant Live! area off of Market Street. It was a great store, but there was little support for it and it went out of business. I think that, with enough support, we could get something like this going again in the D.C. area.

Pittsburgh has a place that seems similar to this one, only it is more for building materials and furniture. They do have smaller items from time to time--- it is hit or miss depending on where you go and what you are looking for. It's called Construction Junction.

http://www.constructionjunction.com/

It's in the same building as Free Ride, the bike organization that reuses bikes and bike scraps and teaches people how to build bikes for free.

Ann Arbor, MI has the Scrap Box (http://www.scrapbox.org/savemoney.html). It is quite similar. I just moved from Ann Arbor to Chapel Hill, so I'm excited not to be cut off from the scrap supply line!

Hi, Ruthie from Community Forklift here! Located in the DC area, we're a thrift store for building materials (similar to Construction Junction). We focus on construction materials (many of our donations come from folks that donate old houses rather than bulldozing them), but we do get other interesting stuff occasionally (www.CommunityForklift.com).

For example, a while ago the Architect of the Capitol cleaned out some store rooms and we ended up with boxes of chalk (the teachers cleaned us out of them quickly) and a pallet of unused glass ashtrays (artists bought them to use them in all sorts of ways). We also have a Free Friday aisle, where we put broken or excess stuff - so the crafters descend on us on Fridays.

Currently, we have one artist who displays stuff that she's made out of reclaimed and found materials - I absolutely love the wooden bowls she decorates with roofing nails (I'd never noticed the rainbow sheen on the nail heads before). Over time, we hope to have more artisans and craftspeople operating out of our space (give us time, we're only 3 years old!)

One other thing I have to say about this post is: I really wish we had such a cute store front!!! It's adorable. We're located in an industrial section between Rhode Island Ave and Kenilworth, and our warehouse blends into the ugly buildings around us. As we get more volunteers, we're hoping to paint the brick front a bright color, and build a new gate out of building material scraps.