- To the untrained eye, it's old building material destined for the garbage heap.

But to the creative minds at Architectural Salvage Bank it's the beginning of a new furniture piece or work of art.

Let's head to Tarpon Springs to see how salvage materials take on new life.

(upbeat music) - I am Emily Baker.

I work here at Architectural Salvage Bank and we really enjoy being here.

There are really two sides to Architectural Salvage Bank.

The first, our front area here, is a lot of really awesome antique and vintage finds.

We try to find the funkiest stuff, things you've never seen before, stuff that people say, what exactly is that, you know?

That's the kind of stuff we're looking for.

(upbeat music) And then on the other side of the coin we do a lot of salvage of old houses, old buildings, and reclaimed wood so that we can create new things out of that to give it life again.

(upbeat music) We have a project that we're currently working on that is for a gentleman who actually gave us a bunch of wood from a sponge barn in Tarpon Springs.

(upbeat music) Well, Tarpon Springs is one of the first on this coast towns that popped up and that actually had a lot of credence because we had a railroad here.

We had a railroad station because of the sponge industry.

The Greek sponge drivers came over here and they were the first ones who were able to go out to sea.

There were sponge hookers is what they called them before.

So they had their hook boats, and they would go out and grab the sponges off the bottom of the ocean.

And then the divers came in.

There's still a huge Greek presence here.

So there's a lot of culture, a lot of history here, because we have a lot of old houses here.

There were a lot of places that were built right around the turn of the century.

So there's a lot of really nice old wood.

And being able to get that old wood and reclaim it and make it into something new and beautiful is just kind of magical.

- So this table's made from a sponge barn.

So locally sourced lumber, it was tore down and would've gone to the dump.

And our goal is to reduce what ends up in the dump.

So we take this lumber back, we de-nail it, and do a whole finishing process to turn it into beautiful pieces of furniture.

- It's a hard pine table.

We call it a farm style table.

The guy called us and said, we have a giant pile of wood if you'd like to come pick through it.

And we said, yes, yes, please.

So we went up there, got as much as we could, floor joists, ceiling beams, all sorts of just rough, raw wood.

And then we are actually making a table for the gentleman who gave us the wood.

(planer whirring) - So, I mean, really it's just like what you can see in it.

And I mean a lot of this lumber it looks distraught and destroyed and termite damaged but it's all about just finding the pretty side and figuring out what you can do with it.

And a lot of this lumber can be saved.

It just takes a lot of care.

And you really have to go through and fill a bunch of holes, pull out a bunch of nails, and a lot of the times it's more work than people want to put into, but a lot of things that are beautiful take a lot of time.

(upbeat music) I mean, you can't make some of these things without really enjoying what you do.

And that's one of the best things about working here is that I get to do what I enjoy every day.

(upbeat music) So when the customers walk in there are just lots of oohs and ahs and overwhelmed just 'cause there's so much stuff here.

- Every time I come, I start at the beginning and I walk very very slowly all the way through.

I mean, there's something new every time.

It's artsy.

The amount of interesting things here it is just astronomical.

- This stuff comes from everywhere.

So it used to be a lot of like going to estate sales, going to auctions, that sort of thing.

But now the majority of it just walks in the front door.

We're so well established that we're the people that have the crazy stuff, that if you have crazy stuff you're gonna bring it to us to see if we want it.

- So, I mean, I live here in Tarpon Springs.

I came into the store just looking around and here's this roulette wheel.

(upbeat music) And I mean, of course I can't pass it up.

My son and I, we like to go to the casino, we like to play roulette.

And I just looked at it.

His birthday was coming up and I thought, definitely I wanna have it.

- So what we have there is a 1950s French roulette wheel and it's, it's pretty special, pretty unique.

It only has one zero, so your odds, you know, are better than with the one that has now has like three, the triple zero or whatever it is that they get you in Vegas.

But it's a beautiful piece.

- So when I first saw it it was just the roulette wheel itself, and it was just kind of sitting there.

It had no stand, it had no base.

- We built a base for it and we built a custom play table to go along with it.

So the custom play table is made from the same wood from the sponge barn as well.

- When she made the table, she made it for Casino Joe.

My son is Joe.

So now we have our full, you know, casino and play land in his house.

Because what 26 year old doesn't need a roulette wheel?

- All of us really come from creative backgrounds.

Other than this, I'm a children's book author.

Hunter's mother is a custom welder.

(upbeat music) Anything that we can keep and reuse is helping to protect our environment and protect mother nature for the next generation.

I have a child, you know, I want him to have a beautiful world to live in.

So all of that is important to me and special to me.

And I love the history of old items.

Everything in here tells a story.

Someone's grandmother washed their clothes using these, you know, old ringers.

And some, someone else will walk in here and pick it up and you can see it on their face when they hold it and they say, my grandmother had one of these.

And it's just this moment and this connection.

It's so beautiful.

It just brings back all of these positive wonderful memories for people.

And to be able to sit here and watch that on a daily basis, it's just such a magical feeling.

And getting to be able to see that every day from all kinds of different people and just making people leave with a smile on their face is something that's really special.

And I wouldn't, there's nothing I would rather be doing.

(gentle music) - To see more visit salvagebank.com.