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West End Salvage Delivers

West End Salvage Delivers

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

 

 

Last first day of school. The house number tradition.

Last first day of school. The house number tradition.

Every year on the night before school she had laid out her new school clothes, meticulously packed her back pack not missing one item from the school supply list, and then stood in front of the mirror trying to get the perfect hair style.

So, from kindergarten thru high school we followed the tradition of taking her picture by the house number with the perfect hair, new outfit, and overstuffed back pack. I love looking at those pictures with the kids. They cringe when they see them.  Why did you let me wear my hair like that! I cannot believe you let me wear that outfit, how embarrassing! 🙂  Hold on people…you picked out the outfits and you worked for hours on your hair.  But you looked so cute!

This year was a little different when laying things out and packing the back pack . We took Samantha back to Drake this past weekend for her senior year in college.

Her last first day of school.

These are the things we laid out and packed. I have shared with you some of the items we worked on for her first apartment in previous posts.  And here is  a mosaic display of all of the pillows, décor and furniture that will make up her new bedroom.

 

Thank goodness my husband is good at Tetris. Between the truck and her car, everything fit, snuggly.

Five hours later we had arrived at her new house and after moving everything in, I took the traditional picture of her by the house number. Her house number. 🙂

Sidenote: Every single year that our kids went off to school, kindergarten thru a senior year in college, I have cried saying goodbye to them. Every single year.

Thank goodness this isn’t a live feed blog.  I am just ugly crying writing this post. No one wants to see that face or hear me blowing my nose.  🙂

And please tell my I am not the only mother that balls her eyes out every year.  Anyone?