Junkyard Dog

Check out this swanky looking dog house, with brightly painted posts, beaded curtains, and although you can't see it in the photo, red wall-to-wall carpeting. Hotsy totsy!

Could this be a fancy new canine domicile for Cabana? Actually, no. It's a dog house made entirely of re-purposed and up-cycled materials, i.e. JUNK! (Or "junque", if that's more to your taste.)

We recently went to a salvage yard in our town. Why? Well, why not?! I had been wanting to check this place out for quite some time--and my daughters and Cabana were dying to check it out, too. Not really, I made them all go with me. Or should I say I bribed them with the promise of frozen yogurts (my daughters were bribed; Cabana came along willingly). But my daughters ended up really enjoying the place and even asked to go back again soon.

Not only is this truck green (or at least it was in its heyday), the whole place is a "green" cornucopia of reclaimed materials, waiting to be used in home and garden projects--or whatever else a person may fancy. It might take a bit of picking through to find what you want, but it's a fraction of the price of buying something new--and so much friendlier to our environment.

Cabana was a good sport about posing. She has a really strong "stay", and I was very grateful that she doesn't pick things up with her mouth much. I'm sure there were lots of little doodads around on the ground. Here, she's sitting so funny, like, "Ouchies, Mom, why do I have to sit on these uncomfortable little rocks?"

The people that work here have made beautiful things out of some of the reclaimed materials. There are planter boxes, sheds, coat racks, tables, adirondack chairs, bird houses--and that fancy dog house. My daughters had to try out this teeter-totter. I think it was a couple of frozen yogurts well spent!