Waste Not Want Not

New Zealander Richard Gow has built a house in Canada made entirely from recycled and salvaged materials, including a deck built from wood out of a dumpster. Gow, a home renovator with a degree in property valuation and his wife Elin Werth, salvaged window jambs, joists, doors and scrap wood and gave them new life in their home. Gow and Werth are firm believers in “recycling” entire homes, as a way to revitalise established neighbourhoods and discourage urban sprawl. The couple specialises in redesigning and renovating older houses by opening up the smaller, divided rooms and adding the modern features people look for in new, suburban homes. “It’s about taking the space and making it work better,” says Gow. And in the dining area, a table made from a Japanese cedar felled by a storm at Gow’s family farm in New Zealand dominates the room.