The Sink: $30.00

The old bathroom sink had been developing a crack and it was very ugly anyway so we went to the Rebuilding Center in North Portland to find a new one. Bring gloves and a tape measure and plenty of time cause there is much for the looking. The Rebuilding Center takes donations from building demolitions and then cleans them up and re-sells them for a huge discount. This sort of recycling has been going on here in Portland for a long time but the other stores sell stuff at much higher prices. The Rebuilding Center is a Non-Profit Org.

So we found the perfect sink nice and deep and wide and very MODERN which is an aesthetic and philosophy Melinda and I appreciate. It looks like a Devo hat upside down and white. Part of the MODERN aesthetic is the economy of space which fits nicely with the M3house vision, not to mention it is a discarded object bought locally and the funds will go back into helping the community.

We opted for a new faucet because the quality of the faucet for all the use it gets has to be really high- we don't want to waste resources it has to last a very long time. Mid-range for a faucet is about 500 bucks and it was made locally and it is a very nice system with a long warranty. I think though for the kitchen I would like to take more time looking for something used, a new one is going to run about $1700 but its not the money. I think of the discarded faucet out there somewhere, lonely and sorrowful and I want to take it home. All the resources used to make and ship a new one--- the embodied energy, ugliness is what that is.

The cabinet was a total score. Found at a thrift-store in Sellwood after looking high and low for weeks. I looked online and at every possible place in Ptown, it amazed me that such an ideal element was so hard to find, I thought my legs would fall off. It is a Chinese antique that has been in Portland for at least 80 years. It was a bit pricey but something like this will only go up in value. For ergonomic sake the top of the basin had to be 34 inches from floor level and this cabinet was the perfect height, I was prepared to raise the basin with custom bamboo but this wasn't necessary.

In my haste I stopped off at Fred Meyer for plumbing parts-fuck I should have known not to buy from that junk joint. I've seen or heard some ad from them somewhere and they claim to give a hoot about what they sell; this is total bullshit. Everything- at least most of the crap they sell is just that, they do NOT source LOCAL, or SUSTAINABLE goods. They have a few items they highlight for suckers but most of it is not and that is not okay, that is lying outright. I will not support a dishonest business. I have heard of a locally owned store in Parkrose that has what we need.