- [Narrator] Throughout the country, people are planting seeds of innovation, harvesting a bounty of ideas to help care for the only home we have, planet earth.

With billions of people on earth it is more important than ever to open our eyes and minds to alternative ideas, both new and old about food, energy, resources, health, housing, and more.

The core of sustainability is meeting the needs of today's society without compromising the world for future generations.

In this series, our field reporters will explore eco-friendly ideas and lifestyles that help to make our world a little bit better.

Welcome to, "My World Too."

- [Narrator] This is a story of how one person's junk literally becomes another person's dream home.

We join film producer, Tom Gray, and learn how a home was built from free materials listed on the internet and found items that would have ended up in a landfill.

- Hey, guys.

Doug.

Cindy.

- Hey, Tom.

How are you doing?

- Good to see you.

- Welcome to Longevity Farm.

- Hi.

Welcome to Longevity Farms.

- Thank you.

I've heard a lot about this place.

Now, is it true that a lot of this farm, and your outbuildings, is all built from Craigslist throwaway materials?

- Pretty much, I'd say 90% of it was found on Craigslist, yeah.

And there's also stuff that I've gotten from some of the jobs.

I do construction.

I have leftover stuff from my jobs that I incorporate as well.

- 15 years ago, when we started, we actually, you know, bought a house plan thinking, "Oh, we're gonna build this traditional home."

And then as the years started kinda going by, we we're thinking, "Well, maybe we should try to do something a little less expensive."

And then we started getting more into repurposing.

And we we're thinking, "Well, maybe we could use, you know, different wood or windows just to maybe save on costs."

And then we realized there were so many things that were being discarded and not used, just amazing pieces of windows and wood that just would have disappeared from earth.

So we brought them down here and just accumulated (chuckles) them in a couple a shipping containers.

Our home turned into just a home that was pretty much repurposed, furniture and all.

- I designed it and drew it and came up with it.

But it kind of evolved as the project went along.

When you're buying from Craigslist you can't always, you know, stick to a blueprint.

We spent about 10 years before we started any construction of just stockpiling items here in the field.

A lot of this stuff was taken off buildings that were, you know, being demolitioned.

And you know, somebody hadn't thought that, "Hey, maybe I can put this on Craigslist instead of burning it or throwing it in the dump," and that's where I came in.

You know, being a carpenter, I love old growth, old wood, old everything.

And they don't have a lot of the old growth these days.

Everything's a quick grow product.

So I wanted the old growth wood that only comes from repurposing.

And I wanted the barn to look old the day it was finished.

I didn't want it to look like a brand new shiny building.

- [Tom] Yeah, it definitely has that rustic feel.

You can't build that overnight, like you say, with new materials.

- [Doug] Right.

- And Cindy, I know you're a big part of this whole operation and beautiful farm.

What's your passion here?

- Being outdoors and taking care of the garden and all the landscaping and the flowers.

And we are growing currently for just a couple of restaurants in town doing some heirloom tomatoes.

And I've got some watermelon, and grapes, and- - Asparagus.

- Yeah.

We did asparagus in the spring.

(gentle piano music) - [Tom] Doug, the portable sawmill.

Something that you don't, not every home has, especially a farm.

But you've got the skills and the talent to utilize such a product?

- Well, you eventually acquire skills and talent when you get something like this.

So it's been a integral part of doing the whole project.

So I harvest the trees here.

The mill enables me to cut it to any type of material I want, whether it's 3/4, or live-edge, or, you know, furniture lumber, whatever.

- [Tom] And the lumber I see right here, it's all come from your own 20 acres?

- We have a lot of timber here that we like to harvest.

And a lot of it's dead standing.

We're very environmentally conscious.

So we don't want to lose our woods.

We love our woods.

And when you have a tree that's dying or dead, and it's standing there, it's basically just gonna be wasted.

So I'm repurposing as well, in the forest, as much as I can.

- Doug, there's a lot of trees right here.

And I know that the house is probably already full and beautifully built.

What's gonna happen with all this one right here?

- Well, this lumber here is future projects.

We don't really have anything specified for it 'cause I kinda do things on the fly, but I have a lot of projects that I'm working on right now.

I'm working on a tree house in the woods.

(gentle piano music) - [Tom] Doug, you're not lying.

This is a pretty big project.

A tree house.

Everyone's gonna love this one, huh?

- Yeah, it's a 12 by 18.

And we put it up 12' in the air.

So it's not actually built into a tree, but it's built in with the trees.

- Mm-hmm, and I see some, was this telephone poles?

- Yeah, these are repurposed telephone poles that I got off of the local power company that was pleased to see 'em go away.

- [Tom] Yeah, and you got some really rustic looking, what are they, 4 by 12s or something up there?

- Yeah.

Those are repurposed 4 by 12s.

They were a stairs on an apartment complex that I took all the stairs out.

And the 4 by 12s, I wound up with about 40 of 'em.

These are rafters that we have made out of a repurposed plywood that came from a warehouse that used plywood for their pallets.

It's 1" thick.

We laminated it and glued it and made a barrel.

We're making a barrel roof on the tree house.

The stairs are repurposed out of a remodel job we did.

We took 'em out of a home and they sat here for about 10 years.

And I said, "Well, that'll fit with the tree house that fits with everything else."

So we repurposed 'em here.

- Well, I'm still waiting to see this house, Doug.

Anticipation is killing me.

So we're gonna see what's inside.

- [Doug] I'll be glad to show you.

(upbeat music) - I can see what you mean.

Look at the wood in this house right here.

It's all reclaimed, huh?

- It's all reclaimed.

The beams here were found after the fact, after the house was drawn, but they fit so perfectly that I just brought 'em, incorporated 'em into the build.

Found 'em in Northern Missouri.

They were actually the beams that went over a gymnasium for a high school.

- [Tom] And they're one continuous length?

- Yeah.

One continuous length.

They're called a glulam beam.

You know, we had to get the telephone poles set first and get 'em cut to length to set these beams on top.

And the telephone poles are also another reclaimed from the Power & Light Company.

But the flooring on top of that came from an old building in downtown that was being demolished.

It was 100 years old.

And they were, it was a warehouse, so it fit right in with the flooring I wanted to put in here.

So that's part of the fun of it, you know, is taking something and making something new out of something old.

And making something really cool outa something that maybe wasn't in its original purpose.

You know, like the flooring from the factory, you know?

It probably wasn't that cool there, but it's a lot cooler here.

- Yeah, what are some of those unique things that you put in the house here?

- Well, there's several things.

I've got a spiral staircase that takes you up to the living space.

And I've got a hand dryer that came out of an old gas station from the 1940s, oldest gas station in town.

They were remodeling it.

So it was headed for the demolition pile.

And those are dumpster finds that, you know, kind of make a house unique and, you know, special.

- Mm-hmm.

And what's above us, Doug?

What's on the next level up?

- Well, the next level is our living area.

And I've got a few things that I've done up there as well, and I'd be glad to show it to you.

(joyful music) - Oh, wow.

This I wasn't expecting.

Doug, this room.

It's gorgeous.

You've got the colors, the wood, the rock.

I bet you Cindy had a lot to do with the design of this room.

- She did.

She's the one who figures out where to put everything to make it, you know, feel like a home.

I'm good at making that thing, but she's good at putting it where it needs to go.

- As we we're building, we were sleeping in a tent on the weekends, outside.

And then when the building was at least enclosed so we could get inside, we were sleeping on the floor, which isn't very comfortable.

I said, "So the next time we come out, honey, I'd like to have a bed to sleep on."

And so he got logs outa the woods, (chuckles) cut them, made a platform, put the logs down, and we blew up an air mattress, and that was the bed.

And as of today, that is now our bed that he added a few things to, to make it a little more bedroom friendly, so.

- As a home that's not new, you've got that rustic feel.

It looks like a homestead.

It feels like a homestead.

I noticed the windows.

I love windows.

Where did those windows come from?

- Well, the windows were also a Craigslist find.

I had windows initially slated for this build.

These kind of fell into my lap and it completely changed everything about the house.

They're much better windows, much bigger, much open.

And that's what we were looking for.

- [Tom] And the floorboards.

I love floorboards like that.

Very rustic, very natural.

It looks so nice.

- Well, this is the side that was, the factory workers worked on, and so it has a lot of the patina that came with that wood that was used in the factory.

So I kind of left that.

We didn't sand it.

We didn't do anything to it.

We put a slight coat on it and it makes a real warm, beautiful floor.

- And the modern kitchen.

You got some modern features in there that everyone needs to have for cooking.

And it's a really nice combination of both the old, the new, and course, the efficiency is gonna have to be the thing you're really looking for, right?

- Yeah.

Efficiency was a big factor.

You know, like the stove.

That's something I bought new because I want the scraps to come from the mill, I want it to be as efficient as possible to heat the house as much as it can.

And the older stoves were great, and they're pretty, but they just don't match the efficiency of that one.

- Building a house from scratch and paying for a carpenter, et cetera, usually is about the 4 to 500, from what I can tell, a house like this.

Can I ask the question?

What did it cost you to build this house based on your materials?

- Well, it's a tough question to ask because it was done over a long period of time and there's a lot of accumulation that wasn't, you know, really kept track of, but I've thought about it.

And I'd say it's around $70,000 in materials.

- Right, so that's what you paid for from Craigslist people, from vendors that you paid for.

Naturally, you're a craftsman and you've got those skills to assemble and put this house together.

So that's a huge saving right there, right?

- Oh, yeah.

Very much so.

If I had to build this house, I would expect to be around that $400,000 range.

- A great trade to have behind you, okay?

- It is a great trade.

It's a trade I love and I've done it my whole life.

And I'm very happy with it.

- Doug, it's been really impressive.

You're a true inspiration of what you and Cindy have built over these last 10 years, and given these materials a complete second life, you know?

So thanks for the tour.

I loved it.

Absolutely loved it.

- Well, thanks for coming.

And I enjoyed giving you the tour.

And I enjoyed sharing it with (music drowns out speaker).

- [Tom] You're a good friend.

Thank you so much.

- [Doug] Thank you, Tom.

(joyful music) - [Narrator] Trees lost to disease, storms or construction are saved from the landfill and turned into lumber for furniture and custom woodworking.

Let's join Kyle Stanley on a walking tour of Urban Lumber.

- Hi, Tim.

Good to meet you.

- Hi, Kyle.

Thanks for coming down.

- Yeah, thanks for having us.

- I'm glad to show you around our showroom.

This is the Urban Lumber Company showroom.

And inside the showroom we have all sorts of different kinds of local species of wood that we have taken from the waste stream.

So this is all logs, or tree parts that came from, that weren't cut down for, like a commercial lumber mill, but were cut down for whatever reason, development, or insect, or whatever, and they're in the waste stream.

So they're gonna be ground up and turned into mulch.

And we take them out of the waste stream, saw 'em up, and make beautiful lumber out of it.

- So if I wanted to make a table, I could come and pick out my own piece of wood, Just a member- - Yeah.

- Of the public?

- Absolutely.

And it's everything in between.

So people will come and take rough lumber home and just do it themselves if they're inclined.

Some people have no interest in woodworking but just want something from the city's urban core in their home and their space, a nice piece of wood with a good live-edge or something like that.

And it's kind of fun for a couple of reasons.

Number one, we get beautiful lumber.

But number two, because these weren't commercially grown, they're wild and people love the wild grain.

- Oh, yeah.

For sure.

- So you can see, you know, this is hackberry.

It grows all over the city, and we get incredible spalting and variegation in it.

And people come in and think it's a zebrawood from somewhere else in a different continent.

And it's all, like, in our backyard.

- [Kyle] So all these massive logs that we just saw up the road, those are, they end up here?

- [Tim] Waiting to be sawed, yeah.

Yeah.

We've got a bunch out back.

We've got a queue.

We've got a dry pile and a sawmill on site.

And so we'll saw it, dry it, and then when it's ready, it's all data based.

We've got photographs of everything.

We know where it came from.

On the labels it says where it came from in the city.

For example, this board came from Kansas City Parks and Rec.

It's all a part of a big log.

You can see they're all came from, this is the log number.

And it probably came down from a storm when the parks dealt with, you know, 20 or 30 trees that are down.

We'll get a call, they'll bring 'em to us, and we'll saw 'em up and make great lumber for it.

(bright music) - [Kyle] So Tim, how many different varieties of wood do you guys have here?

- [Tim] Oh, wow.

That's hard to say.

Pretty much anything that grows around the city, maybe up to 17 different species.

- This is beautiful.

What's- - Thanks, yeah.

- What is this?

- This one's ready to go.

I gotta put one more coat of finish on it, sand it down tonight, and put one more on it.

This is a black walnut table for a great couple that came in two weeks ago.

- What's really cool is this stuff's not actually coming from forests, and- - Yeah, it's a mind blowing to think about all of the city trees going to waste.

In fact, there's a statistic that of our nation's commercial timberland, there's an amount equal to 25% in the cities that just goes to waste.

And so the urban wood movement, which is kind of a thing, takes advantage of all that wood that was previously not used and makes beautiful products.

And people love it 'cause they know where it came from.

(joyful music) - So Tim, what are the various markings on all these?

- Well that lets us know where they came from.

The way that we work is people will bring logs in from different parts of the town.

So for example, the AI came from the Kansas City Art Institute.

They're building a new dorm and they took down a bunch of trees.

- [Kyle] Cool.

- So we got those logs.

The KC logs came from Kansas City Parks and Rec.

Those are ash.

They came down from pest, the emerald ash borer.

And then there's also some white oak that came down from a park renovation.

After they're sawn, you know, the good stuff will go in the dry pile.

Everything that's left over from the sawing process will go on our scrap pile.

And the great thing about that is that Kevin'll come down and scoop it all up and turn it into mulch.

So nothing gets wasted.

- Man, Tim, thanks for having us out here.

This is too cool.

- Oh, thanks for coming out.

You know, I love talking about it, I love showing people around, and I love spreading the word.

It's a great resource that I hate seeing go to waste.

And so it's fantastic when people could take advantage of it.

And I love helping along the way.

(joyful music) - Well lavender dates back to biblical times, to Roman times.

It was used in their baths to wash.

It even dates back to Egyptian times actually.

So the benefits of lavenders are huge and that's what makes a plant so amazing and almost an addictive in a certain way, as a grower, because it has multiple uses.

And you never stop learning about the plant.

My name is Paola Legarre and we're at Sage Creations Organic Farm in Palisade, Colorado.

We're a diverse, certified organic farm.

We farm 10 acres and we grow 6 acres of lavender and aromatic herbs, as well as culinary herbs.

We also have sweet cherries and a market garden with vegetables.

- And my mom has been running this farm for about 15 years now.

And so I've grown up here.

Well, mostly my job at the farm is working with all the retail stuff.

So I really deal with customers, helping them find plants, product.

(joyful music) - We're in Palisade, Colorado, which is the Western Slope, and we're in the high desert.

Our farm sits at 4,800 feet.

So it's a very arid climate, very dry.

We have about an average of 9" of rainfall a year.

So all our irrigation water comes from the Colorado River.

And it makes it just a great climate for growing lavender.

It likes to be stressed, at times, at which then it produces really great essential oil.

We use all drip irrigation.

Water is a valuable resource here.

We basically have water from April through October.

And what's great about a lot of the herbs that we grow is that they don't take a lot of water.

I came from organic farming background so it seemed like an obvious fit.

Something that I've always believed in.

And those are the methods that I learned as a young grower, and as apprentice, I learned about organic farming.

- I think it's very important to have an organic farm and have organic supplies and suppliers.

And it means a lot to me 'cause I have grown up in that sort of environment.

And I think really keeping an eye on what you're eating, and where you're getting your plants, and your food, and even the products that you're using, looking at ingredients and how they're made.

I think that's very important to have an actual future for the next generations.

(joyful music) - We do utilize certain bugs on the farm that I actually bring in.

And we will do releases in our greenhouses and our orchard systems.

Great beneficial insects are lacewings and ladybugs, or lady beetles.

The good bugs control the bad bugs, which then you won't have to spray.

So I always like to go to those methods before I revert to spraying.

Well, bees are incredibly important, and bumblebees and other pollinating insects.

They pollinate our cherry trees, for example.

That's what will produce a better and bigger crop.

They also pollinate our tomato plants and our eggplant.

So pollinators are very important to create an abundant crop.

So there are some weeds that I actually welcome when they come up in the spring.

And one of 'em is dandelions, is a great example, because these are very hungry in that early spring.

And that's the first thing to bloom.

And that way they have some flowers to forage.

- Lavender is a very, I think, more of a complex plant than a lot of people think it is.

So there's a lot of different species and varieties.

And so it has a lot of really amazing uses.

So usually people think of lavender as something to relax with, or to aid in sleep, but there's also lavender to help invigorate and wake-up.

- The two species that we grow, the angustifolias, which are the true lavenders, is the most cold hardy.

And that's one of the reasons we also grow it here.

The uses are endless.

And as a landscape plant, it's beautiful.

And it's a great plant to have in your garden because it does promote bee health.

And it's a great xeriscape plant.

It doesn't take a lot of water.

It's also a great plant to cook with.

It's an herb.

It goes well with all kinds of other savory herbs like rosemary, and sage, and thyme.

And the other species that we grow are the x intermedias, or what's commonly known as lavindin.

And that has, its chemical compounds are gonna be higher in camphor and terpene.

It's also a plant that's great, it has anti-inflammatory properties.

Great for skincare.

Great for cleaning.

I clean my entire house with the distillate that comes, and the essential oil that comes, from the lavindin plant.

It's been used from painters for many years, going back to the 17th and 18th century.

Painters will use it to mix into their oil pigments.

So artists have been using it for centuries.

(joyful music) So here at Sage Creations we process everything about the plant.

We actually, we will propagate the plant to make a new plant to grow our fields.

And we'll also grow for growers, and we'll sell the plants retail to gardeners.

So we start that plant in the fall from a small little cutting, and grow that in the greenhouse on a heated, we have heated beds in the greenhouse.

But with the established plants, we actually harvest.

Our harvest begins in June and goes through the first part of August.

And then also sometimes in the fall with plants that will actually double bloom.

So we'll harvest the plants for culinary use, or for the essential oils in the hydrosols.

And what we do with the essential oils and the hydrosols, we'll sell that bottled, and retail, or bulk to processors.

And we'll also incorporate it in our own bath and body product line.

And as far as the culinary lavender, we will sell that too as well to processors.

People make lavender wine, lavender beer, ice-cream, all kinds of things that you can incorporate lavender to.

Essential oil from a plant is the oil that comes straight from the plant.

So it's 100% pure oil that that plant produces.

So if you're looking for 100% pure essential oil, it's gonna take a lot of plant material to produce that.

So for, you know, when you go to the store and you find you have a small bottle of a lavender essential oil, or perhaps some other essential oil, the reason it may be so costly is because it took a lot of plant material to produce that small amount of oil.

So the hydrosol is the distillate that comes straight out of the condenser.

And it's the essential oil is what we siphon off of the hydrosols.

So what's left is that floral water.

So for example, specifically to lavender, how we process it, we're actually just starting now to process our new crop.

So we start with, when we're harvesting for ornamental bundles, or culinary lavender, we'll bundle actually in the field, we'll harvest and bundle.

And then we'll take it to our drying rooms and hang it to dry.

And then from that stage, we'll actually, if it's an ornamental bundle, we will sell it as a bundle.

But if we sell it as a culinary flower bud, then we will actually take those buds off and clean it through a seed cleaner.

And if it's for essential oils, we don't bundle, we just harvest all that lavender loose and put it in the still pot and distill it fresh, right from the field.

- It's very important to buy from small farms and really family-owned operations.

Especially in agriculture, you can see, you know, the big stuff in the grocery stores.

But try to find the farm stands and the local families that are growing around you.

It's really important to support those families because they're the ones that are really, you know, putting your food on the table, and making things happen, and putting jobs out there for a lot of people who would have trouble finding jobs otherwise.

And it's very important to support what's around you, and small families, because they're really the small cogs that are keeping the earth going.

(chuckles) - I would say, as an herbal farmer, I definitely encourage people to support their local herb farms, and learn about them.

And see how to incorporate it your life, to basically better your life in many ways, whether it be through aromatherapy, or whether it be through skin care, or culinary, incorporating into your daily practice of life, then you'll fall in love with it, for sure.

(joyful music) - [Narrator] Share your sustainability story or learn more about sustainability and earth friendly innovations at myworldtoo.com - Nick, can you talk to me about the philosophy behind the maker community of everything has a purpose, everything has a use?

- Makers are creators.

Makers look at, you know, discarded objects and see the value of what they might be.

(joyful music) - Thank you so much for inviting us into your studio.

I think the reason we're here is to talk about this, your dress.

- Yes.

So it's just a panel design that I came up with.

And I created it from (music drowns out speaker) pairs of (music drowns out speaker) jeans.

- Oh, wow, so these were jeans that someone else had already gotten all their use out of, and now you're turning it into something else?

- Exactly.

- If I'm understanding you correctly, you are retrofitting parts and lights for these microscopes so they, this doesn't end up in a landfill?

And it- - That's right.

- Continues to be used?

- That's right.

- Heirlooms, because it's kind of a loose term, and it means different things to different people, but it's basically a traditional variety, in some places called a heritage variety, or antique variety, it's basic varieties sort of passed down from family to family.

And just like heirloom furniture, or jewelry, or whatever there might have been in your family, there are traditional family varieties, is what it means.

It's hard to tell how old they are.

It varies, you know, depending on the definition.

But generally, it's gonna be up to near 100 years old, or, you know, older.

(joyful music) (rocket whooshing) (joyful music) (playful music) (jaunty music) (jubilant music)