A unique guest house in Charlottesville, VA

The Recycled House

Here's the front entrance. The wood on the wall is over 100 years old. A cozy fire will greet you during the cooler months. The woodstove is a Tulikivi, made in Finland. It was a floor model. The living room has a queen-size sofa sleeper with a premium mattress. Comfy! The outside of the house has old metal from the original structure, so we decided to literally go full-circle with some new metal inside. I love these very industrial-looking sconces I scored at a pop-up consignment sale. These porch lights are made from old chicken feeders. I put them in pipe rods and used Edison bulbs just for fun. The roses have gone crazy. The trellis is a shelf from a store I got out of a dumpster. Here's the porch off the side door. The brick is from an old government building. The metal was on the original structure. Let's go into the kitchen/dining area. That wood on the wall is over 100 years old. I thought the downstairs bath was too purple so we put up the white wainscoting. Cypress on the ceiling, leftover kitchen cabinet and fancy dual-flush commode that was a floor model. We replaced the back of the cabinets from the Habitat store with glass because we were putting them in front of window and didn't want to lose the natural light. The soapstone countertops came out of the UVA chemistry lab when they did a re-do. The cooktop and stove came out of a demo kitchen at Lowes. There have been lots of fun meals at the dining table. There's a sweet little breakfast nook. I re-covered the chairs in vintage fabric I had in my stash. We made a floor out of leftover granite and slate that was going to be thrown into the landfill. The deck off the kitchen is made from bleachers we got at the scrapyard. The stairs are made from beech and birch. The railing used to be a futon frame. Yes, those are croquet balls! That's a tree we cut down, so we had to use it. More of that gorgeous old wood at the top of the stairs, and you can peek into the bedroom. At the top of the stairs, you can go either left or right. The floor is hickory, and those bricks date back more than a century. We used more of the tree for that top railing on the right. You can make a pendant out of just about anything. These are vintage canning jars. The loft has a full-size sofa sleeper. There is also a cozy reading nook. The bedroom door is an old-timey restaurant swinging door that we put on hardware meant for a barn door. The handle was a horseshoe. There's a king bed in the bedroom that has a lot of different outfits to wear! The vanity has a Carrera marble top. Those mirrors are from a hotel, and that's old chestnut around the center window. All the tile in The Recycled House is remnant tile -- all leftover from other people's jobs! These came from a pool, but don't worry, the bathtub's not that deep. There's an indoor porch off the bedroom that's fun for reading my vintage magazines. Off the indoor porch, there's an outdoor one. When the tree is in bloom, it's like being in a treehouse!