Sweet salvation- using architectural salvage

As a determined “skip-rat” I find the whole idea of salvaging architectural items from old buildings utterly fascinating. When an important or interesting building is being totaled, or re-furbished, a tender goes out to various companies for the useful artifacts.

Plasterwork ceilings, doors, loos, floors, balustrades, paneling, in fact any of the building fabric that is potentially valuable or worthy can be lifted out of the place bodily or with the aid of a crane. The sight of a Georgian fanlight with no recognised value languishing in a skip may be a bad memory today, but good pieces still do perish. One dealer I spoke to in my travels, pointed sadly to a lovely Victorian toilet and told me that the matching ceramic bath had been casually demolished with a hammer by the plumber as it was “awkward” to move.

These miraculous survivals from home and abroad are a gold mine for homeowners looking for the quality and sheer presence of material from a different age or keen to match the material in an old and gently faded building inside and out. Currently, it is still creative professionals such as architects and interior designers who buy the bulk of architectural salvage, instinctively visualising what some of the more unusual items might become. This is a critical skill to develop if you want to incorporate old material into an interior, as much salvage is re-interpreted in a new setting.