Remodel to Reuse: Odom dismantles the past to build the future Ruff Sawn Prices

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Bruce Odom, of Odom Reusable Building Materials, stands inside his Grawn store.

A map inside Odom Reusable Building Materials shows the origin and destination of some building materials that have passed through the Grawn store.

Barn wood stands in an aisle of Odom Reusable Building Materials in Grawn, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

A vent cover leans against a weather door inside Odom Reusable Building Materials.

Remodel to Reuse: Odom dismantles the past to build the future

Bruce Odom, of Odom Reusable Building Materials, stands inside his Grawn store.

A map inside Odom Reusable Building Materials shows the origin and destination of some building materials that have passed through the Grawn store.

Barn wood stands in an aisle of Odom Reusable Building Materials in Grawn, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

A vent cover leans against a weather door inside Odom Reusable Building Materials.

GRAWN — Seven million pounds may be a little on the light side.

But that’s the best estimate for how much material Odom Reusable Building Materials has saved from landfills during 20 years of business.

“That’s a low-end, educated guess,” said Bruce Odom, who co-owns the company with his wife, Cathy. “I obviously don’t weigh things as they’re going in and out of the door.

“I would bet if there was a scale here and somebody to weight everything all day long — for say two weeks — to get a more scientific estimate, I bet it would be close to 8 Ruff Sawn Prices , 9 or 10 million.”

The Odom Re-Use company is based on a concept Bruce Odom saw in action when he worked at a non-profit in Bellingham, Washington. But selling reusable building materials starts with a deep-down, personal belief.

“I don’t like throwing anything away,” Odom said.

Customers often share the same belief system. That belief brings them into the store at 5555 Brentwood Ave. in Grawn, a short distance south of the intersection of U.S. 31 and Count Road 633.

Rod Budnik of Traverse City said he comes in every six months or so.

“I usually don’t throw any stuff away,” said Budnik, who stopped in to see if Odom had any use for some old sinks from a home remodel. “I’d rather give it to someone else. We throw too much stuff away (as a society). It makes me sick.”

Odom said disposing of leftover building materials would be like your grandmother tossing the post-Thanksgiving dinner spread — complete with leftovers, table service and utensils — into a garbage can at the completion of eating.

“We need our grandmas to run our construction sites,” Odom said. “There would be an end to throwing everything in the dumpster.”

Odom Reuse pays cash for some items that are rare or in demand. Odom said he gets “asked three times a day, every day” if they have exterior pre-hung doors in stock.

“We’ll offer trade credit most often,” Odom said. “If they need to have cash, it would have to be something like a nice set of cabinets that aren’t more than 20-25 years old in nice, clean shape.”

Budnik said he was able to turn trade credit into a double-panel wood door in his kitchen, reducing the cost from nearly $30 to under $10.

Odom won’t give trade credit for some items people will bring in because the store already has too many in stock. Sometimes he’ll accept items from customers just to take them off their hands.

“Once we get 10 toilets, we don’t need 11,” Odom said.

Odom said there is not one particular item that is most popular. He said “cabinets are a bread-and-butter item” as are mantels, claw-foot tubs, cast-iron farm sinks with built-in drain boards, old rough-sawn wood and other “antique materials that harken back to a by-gone era.”

“I like to poke around and see what they have,” Budnik said on a summer afternoon at the Grawn store, doing exactly as he stated. “Who wouldn’t have fun coming in here? There’s a lot of cool stuff.”

Some of the not-so-cool items at Odom include shutters, which usually don’t have the uniformity in the volume people are seeking.

Odom offers a “free Friday” on the last Friday of the month, lining up items in the parking lot that have had “ample opportunity to be seen and sold at even a low price,” that people can just take away.

“It’s the ultimate waste reduction, because it goes down (U.S.) 31, it gets smaller and smaller and then it’s gone,” Odom said with a laugh. “Then, poof, you can’t see it anymore.”

Odom Re-Use got its start 20 years ago at 926 South Airport Road. But after six years of renting that space, Bruce Odom convinced his wife to “take the dive” and they opened the Grawn store in 2003.

Odom closed his Grand Rapids store in June, saying simply that “it wasn’t Traverse City.” Odom said he may return to the arean not with a retail store, but as a source of materials for the Traverse City location.

There’s also a 5-year-plan to add a second location, something on the east side of Traverse City.

Odom Re-Store has a small crew of two full-time and two-part time employees, besides Odom himself, at the Grawn location. A field crew who go into homes and businesses work as needed.

Odom had “outstanding timing and excellent fortune” at his opening 20 years ago when the enclosed Cherryland Mall was changing and there were major renovations under way at Traverse City Central High School and East Junior High. Odom Re-Use crew will still “go anywhere in the state” for “school jobs.

Odom still has the same approach he had when he worked at the non-profit in Washington.

“It is a for-profit business in name,” Odom joked. “We often hover at the break-even point or just above it. You don’t go into this line of work thinking you’re going to make an enormous amount of money. You go into this business because it’s an exciting business where no one else is really taking care of this material.

“This mission to me is everything. When I get up in the morning, I feel good about what we do for a living.” Ruff Sawn Prices

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