In the spirit of preserving our natural resources and reducing waste, we tried to use a lot of recycled materials in our house. A lot of clever companies have now come up with great ways to recycle existing goods and materials to make new products. Here are some of our favorite finds that we incorporated into our interior design:

1. Red pendant lights in the kitchen made of recycled stop lights (www.greenlightconcepts.com) (see previous post, "Hal...is that You")
2. Artwork that doubles as a wall. 3Form constructed these wall panels from a resin they make out of recycled plastic bottles (www.3-form.com). You can choose from a variety of colors and items to put inside the panels and give your space some flare (i.e. colored glass chips, flowers, bamboo). Since Jeff is a photographer, I choose to add his photographs to our panels (designed by Jackie Millea at Shelter).
3. Upstairs floor made of a recycled gym floor from an elementary school in Wisconsin. We painted it black. (see previous post, "Black Out(ch)")
4. Stair treads and stringers made of recycled wood from the rest of our project (wood left-over from the floor trusses).
5. Shelving in the pantry and closets constructed of left-over wood from the cabinets.

- Salena