Holy smokes, you guys. You did it. Team ReadyMade did it. We all did it, together. The ReadyMade 100, from start to finish was an immense group effort, from our readers submitting projects, to the very difficult decision amongst the judges on deciding whose work would get made. From there, we enlisted the heroes at West End Architectural Salvage to create most of these projects, and though they have a ton of salvage and raw material to work with, we still had to do some scouting on our own.

Enter design apprentice Jeremy Orr, who had quite the adventures scouting items for the projects last winter. Here, we’ll let him tell you about it:

Today I stopped back a spot in Ames where I found an old TV and took some pictures. It’s a business called Ames Greenhouse, Floral & Antiques. I had also called on Monday and asked if they had any old light bulbs they could sell me for the chandelier project—which they did.

I talked with Joanie, one of the owners. She and her partner started a floral business in 1968 near the Iowa State University campus where Le was a senior in the Horticulture program. Since they had little money, they shopped garage sales for tables and furniture to use in their store. They moved to their current location 38 years ago.

She told me about the business as I followed her through narrow aisles in the upstairs section of the store. Apparently, after they stocked their store with garage sale finds, customers were more interested in the furniture rather than the flowers. That is why they started buying old stuff to supplement the floral business. While she scrounged around, harvesting light bulbs from old lamps, I tried to scribble down notes, snap pictures, and avoid knocking over stacks of hoarded treasure. By the time I left she had gathered nearly 20 light bulbs and a garbage bag of old cans (for the can shelf/décor). The TV I got from there was under a tarp out in one of the greenhouses. The cans were stashed under a greenhouse bench.

For a different story...

Last weekend I went to some local thrift stores to find spoons for the spoon wall. While digging through some bins I found three silver spoons so I bought them for 10 cents a piece. I looked them up on the internet when I got home and found some similar spoons selling for $60 a piece. Of course I rushed back to the store and spent another hour digging through all the silverware bins... but I found no more.

Nice work, Jeremy! We scored the keyboards for the Geeky Bar Top from Midwest Recovery (thanks again!), and brought the whole lot over to West End, where they let us hang out with them at the very end, and document their process.

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