As promised, my weekend with Samantha was wonderful. Besides, great food, flowing cocktails and meeting her college peers we managed to work in A LOT of great shopping.

Listen when I tell you this. Grab your coat and gloves and get yourself to West End Salvage in Des Moines Iowa! You will not be disappointed.

This was the first stop on our agenda for Saturday morning.

Sam and I got started early. I was prepared to dig though mountains of wrought iron and wood and get my hands dirty to find the perfect treasure.

West End has four warehouse floors covering over 50,000 square feet of reclaimed, recycled and salvaged materials taken from old homes, abandoned schools and turn-of-the-century churches . I can’t even tell you how many times I would say, “Oh my gosh Sam, look at this. Oh. my. gosh. Sam, look at this!”

Not only were there salvaged items from different parts of the country, this warehouse also offers a venue available for parties, weddings and other events.

My imagination was in over drive. I apologize for the photo dump this is going to turn into for a minute, but slowly take in all of the items in these photos.

 

Do you love it? There was sooooo much more.

I knew what I was looking for when Sam and I made plans to meet for the weekend. And I found it. On the top floor, in the back, tucked in a barrel that also had a broken chimney sweep brush in it and an insanely heavy metal grate balancing on top.

Check out this beauty.

I couldn’t believe my luck. Forty-four inches of solid wood newel awesomeness!

The only thing better is my plans for what it is going to become! Can you tell I am excited?!?

We had spent so much time at West End Salvage that our scheduled plans were quickly abbreviated to one more stop.

The Habitat ReStore has a constantly changing inventory that not only has fantastic prices but supports the communities where they are located.

The inventory available on this visit wasn’t nearly as exciting as previous trips, but I did manage to snag this James Bond like metal case tool kit.

Wade will be thrilled as his tool bench is restocked when all of the random tools I sneak up to my shop are miraculously returned.

Speaking of Wade, Sam and I called him on Sunday morning to “check in”, chat about our weekends and let him know my plans for returning home later in the day.

Right before hanging up, he says to me, “Hey, I like that new bird cage thing.”

I was impressed. He never notices anything new around the house. Just as I was going to give him kudos for noticing, he shares that he read my Sidenote Saturday post about the bird cage cloche.

He had not noticed any time in the last three days as he walked by it or that it sits right beside the TV or even that from the big brown leather chair he was sitting in while reading the post, literally sits less than 10 feet away from the bird cage.

Nope, he read about it in the post last Saturday.

He’s lucky he’s so handsome. 🙂

Have a great week.

See you on Wednesday,

Wendy