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After a few days of sorting and categorizing trash, Weimer knew firsthand that people were tossing large amounts of usable materials. He decided an outlet for recycled building materials might be an idea whose time had come.

The local community showed support for the idea. When Whatcom County asked for proposals to develop ways to reuse materials, Resources applied, and REStore was born with a $30,000 county grant. The seed money would last five months.

Fortunately, the store quickly became self-funding. A lesson in salvaging materials helped the young store take its first step toward independence. The Bellingham School District prepared to knock down Silver Beach Elementary School for a major remodel. Weimer, with the new REStore’s manager and Bennick — then a college intern — managed to get into the school site and salvage things that “they just don’t make anymore.”

“It was full of all this amazing 1900 cabinetry, molding and flooring,” Weimer said. “And the stuff sold,” he added, surprised.

The salvaged material from Silver Beach was a hit, but the store’s growing years also had some misses.

“The first year we were open, we really had a hard time turning down anybody who showed up with anything,” Weimer said. “I ended up going out and picking up some weird batches of things.”

One of the weirdest pick-ups was a batch of 12,000 ham socks from a meat-packing plant.

A ham sock looks like a six-foot tube sock, designed to hang hams in a smoke house. Obviously, it is not a hot seller. But, the REStore staff proudly boasts they can sell almost anything — or give it away — and even the ham socks found a useful home.

Apparently, they’re made of the same material that is used to cast broken limbs, landing them a home in Bosnia as medical equipment.

“We (gave) about half of them to a guy who was collecting medical supplies and shipping them to various places around the world,” Weimer said.

Most of the remaining socks went to some arts-and-crafts-type people. And the leftovers?

“I think I still have a couple of those in my office,” Weimer admits.

Today, REStore is grown-up enough to limit its inventory to building materials, except for an occasional piano or pool table.

“The sign on the outside says used building material and more,” Bennick explains.

REStore has become a lot more.

Since its opening, REStore has not only stayed true to its cause, but has grown into a self-sufficient business. Its current operating budget is around $600,000, the number of employees has grown to 18, and last year it salvaged and resold 55 semi-truck loads of materials — enough to cover a football field in materials three feet deep.

Not bad for a business that started with three employees, some desks from Western and a little insulation.

After spending its first four years on the Guide Meridian in a building now occupied by Sleep Country USA, the store moved to Holly Street in Bellingham’s “Old Town” district.

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