Up-Cycling Material for the Homestead ...Let the Scavenging Frenzy Begin!
Hollywood is far from being green but with a little creativity, some of us can really benefit from this awesome Junk capital.
Here it is again... The great salvaging frenzy, that comes at the end of every movie and TV show. So, I work in Hollywood (in New York City)... nothing fancy really, there isn't much glamor down at the worker bee level but it is free lance work and I can pretty much pick when I want to work! I am a rigging grip, we are pretty much the handy men, problem solver and crane operators on a film set. Driving the different crazy machines may be one of the funnest part of the job, along with having access to places that wouldn't normally be on my radar. From abandoned train yards in the depths of the Bronx to 90 million dollar penthouses above wall street sets get built and dressed.
And than you have the stages, in the very beginning they are really just empty warehouses. Over a pretty short period of time these stages get completely transformed into hospitals, police stations, basements, offices, apartments, rocket ships or whatever you can dream of...
Anything and everything has been built on these stages. We built a crashed UFO for Men in Black 2, that was a fun job!
The thing is, it all comes to an end and when the price of space in New York City is over-inflated and other factors (such as stupid union job safety bullshit) all that material, all those windows and doors, appliances, desks, beds, wardrobe, all the props, the rugs and nick-knacks... All of is built with different sorts of dimensional lumber. Basically almost everything you need to build a home with becomes available at a fraction of the price! If the company has time, they will try to make a little something by holding a quick sale for the crew, but sometimes there is no time and we just fill dump truck after dump truck full for weeks!
There we are already eying things up to take home as it makes it way into the dumpsters....! It's kind of nerve racking because there are different departments taking care of their own different materials they used over the years. That means no one really knows the when, what or if things go to trash! You just have to keep an look out.
There's real gold in all of this junk!
How about extending the growing season? There's quite a few windows... The aluminum frames alone would be worth bringing to the scrap yard, but I would prefer the glass and all to build a greenhouse.
I am aiming for what these cables are laying on. We made runs and runs of the cat walks, made for running an electrical grid for the sets and for ease of rigging whatever is needed above the main sets. These cat walks are made up of 16 foot lengths 2 by 12, 2 by 6 and 2 by 4.... there are probably close to 200 pieces laying up there between 3 stages that this TV show has had for the last 7 years! Now I have to play my cards right, find a space to store it all, out of the way until the end when I can rent a truck.
Timing is everything, especially when other departments throw things out that I could use on the homestead build. At the same time, I really don't want to collect too much junk or things I will not use.
When the opportunity arises (usually after the big shots have taken ownership of expensive appliances written into the plot with this end game in mind) I can try to salvage all I need for the homestead!!!!
Spread your wings and fly to where your heart takes you.
While a good long ways from Hollywood, we also had a source of waste materials for a long time. My husband worked at a hospital in the Maintenance dept and then as a Project Manager for 17 years. He brought home all kinds of thrown out stuff: Civil Defense water barrels (so handy, used all the time for the last 20 years); enough plywood and stud panels to build our entire wood shed; the copper clad bay window in our butchershop, and I could go on and on. But all good things come to an end and he left the hospital over 20 years ago.
Free stuff like that is great!
I think I forgot to mention that when I say Hollywood, I am talking about the industry. We are in New York City!
But anyways, yeah it's amazing how much hospitals and schools will throw away. There's a hospital we work at from time to time and their dumpster is always filled with construction material and weird machines!
It's so great you guys benefited from your husband's work that way.
That's so awesome! Tomorrow I'm getting a load of buckets... Usually they cut holes in the lids, but when I'm in the workstation with the buckets, I switch them out and just put the lid that already has a hole onto the new bucket. That way I get lids. I think I'll get 8 this week. Need to start storing them better... These things get bulky when you have 20 of em.
Saving up for a composting toilet, worm towers, and a worm farm. :)
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That's a good idea, when you can you switch the new lids with the hily ones! Saves on material and on cutting new holes. Plus you get whole lids.
I'm curious to see what a worm tower and farm look like made from buckets. Are they just filled with halfway composted material where you ad some worms and they multiply or something?
Kinda like this.
But I'm also seeing ones where folks drill holes in the bucket full of worms and actually plant into it. That sounds pretty dang cool.
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Oh this is very cool. Thanks. I now have some ideas of what to do with these huge pieces of pvc pipes I could salvage!
Yeah!!! It looks like you're basically making a buffet for the worms to gather at. Then plant around it and they feed your plants with their poop!!!
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Eight buckets today. Five good lids, three drilled lids. And I just got an idea for the lids lol
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Nice! You got to get what you can. Those buckets are like gold in some countries. Very useful.
What are you going to do with the lids with holes?
I'm gonna take some of them and stack them to use as a platform to keep my chickens'water dish off the ground. They keep throwing leaves in it and getting it dirty.
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I am seriously jealous right now, a bit disgusted at what gets thrown away, but wow so much potential, just more and more ideas keep popping into my head and the tree house i'd love to build would definitely be 2 storey xxx
It's truly disgusting. Things are changing slowly in this industry... they don't use water bottles anymore and all plastic utensils must be made from some sort of biodegradable product like corn. But over all it is still horrifying... I'm working on getting myself out of that job!
I really like your idea of 2 storey tree houses!!!
It is a fever!
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For sure! Everyone's running around marking things they want to take.
looks like a bonanza!
Yeah... it's madness!