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4671 Tanglewood Drive, Edmonston MD 20781
(5 min. from DC, near Hyattsville)
Open 7 days a week, from 9 AM - 6 PM - a
and open till 7 PM on Wednesdays & Fridays.
(Please drop off donations at least 30 minutes before closing time.)
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Still saving the world, one 2'x4' at a time...
Please help us help the community
Most of you know Community Forklift as a successful green business and a fun place to shop, but do you know much about our nonprofit work?
Our proceeds help provide good green jobs to our 40 staff, and provide an enormous amount of low-cost and free materials to the community.
- Did you know that Forklift has provided almost a quarter of a million dollars ($228,453) of building materials to local community members and organizations through our Home Essentials and Community Building Block programs? Those are FREE materials going to folks in need.
- Did you know that we hire "returning citizens" and work with community organizations to help them re-enter the workforce?
- Did you know that we have held hundreds of free workshops and events to educate the community about reuse and sustainability?
Those are only a few examples of all the work we do! Now, we are hoping to expand our operation in several ways, but we need financial support to help make this happen. We are currently 97% self-funded, but we could do so much more with your help. Please consider a gift of any size.
You can make a secure, tax-deductible donation online, or mail a check to Community Forklift, 4671 Tanglewood Drive, Edmonston, MD 20781.
For gifts over $500, please get in touch with me directly. We have a donor who will match any major gift over $500 up to $5,000. Just contact me at Nancy(at)CommunityForklift.org or 301-985-5180.
Gratefully,
Nancy J. Meyer, CEO/COO
Community Forklift
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Don't miss the festival
THIS WEEKEND!!
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From 10am - 4pm this Saturday, Sept. 24th, bring your vintage-loving friends to Community Forklift for This Old Warehouse, our big fall festival.
ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE SALE! During the celebration, we'll have discounts on reclaimed mantels, vintage windows, period light fixtures, clawfoot tubs, cast-iron sinks, and more.
APPRAISAL ADVICE FUNDRAISER!
Jackie Gray & Chris Melendez
Wonder whether that old knick-knack is worth anything? Do you love watching Antiques Roadshow? Bring in something you're curious about! Jackie Gray of Hidden Treasure Appraisals and the Forklift's Chris Melendez will offer advice about your antiques, including architectural salvage, ceramics, furniture, sterling silver, and vintage jewelry. Donations to Community Forklift are greatly appreciated. In addition to financial donations, we will also be collecting donations of estate & folk jewelry, and sterling silver hollow ware & flatware at this booth.
INFORMATION & DEMOS!
Learn about preservation grants, rebates, local restoration companies, and more. We'll have a ton of folks here to share useful info, including:
Historic Structures
Stephen Palmer Electric, Inc.
STROLLING MAGICIAN!
12pm - 2pm
Matt Neufeld will perform family-friendly, fun, funny, and entertaining card, coin, mind-reading, and production close-up magic!!
LOCAL BANDS! 10:00am - Bluegrass, Country, & Americana from Silver City
Silver City is a string band in the Metropolitan D.C. area that blends the best of classic country, bluegrass, folk, honky tonk, and other Americana music. Silver City plays a mix of classics and rediscovered gems from the likes of Emmylou Harris, George Jones, Willie Nelson, The Band, Bob Wills, Lyle Lovett, and many more. Their sound combines rich vocal harmonies with guitar, fiddle, banjo, upright bass, and harmonica.
12:00pm - Indie Rock & Bluegrass from Blue Plains
These Hyattsville locals have green roots in the community and a passion for original composition.
2:00pm - Indie Folk from Slim RosaSlim Rosa is a side project collaboration of the founding members of The Iris Bell. For this project, Matthew and Laura wanted to explore a more plaintive side to their songwriting. Slim Rosa blends acoustic guitars and analog organs with vocal harmonies, evoking the duo's connection to their Tennessee/North Carolina/Georgia roots.
YUMMY FOOD!
Urban Bumpkin BBQ is a modern rolling cuisine that combines Asian, Native Alaskan, and Russian dishes with American smoking traditions and unique bang'n flavors. They say, "Some may call it the identity crisis menu, but it's definitely the epitome of melting pot 'Murica!" SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR EVENT SPONSORS:
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Free tours & workshops
Learn from the experts this Saturday, September 24th during This Old Warehouse.
Tour our Salvage Arts room with antiques dealer Terry Lewis, and take a walk through the history of lighting. Learn about period lighting including style, methods of construction, types of shades, and scale of fixtures as related to room designs & furniture styles.
Familiar with all types of wiring dating back to the late 19th century, Steve will be sharing tips to troubleshoot and assess electrical safety in old homes.
1:30 pm - Harvest Farm Tour
Join us for a crisp neighborhood walk and a fall harvest tour of ECO City Farms, just a few blocks from the 'Lift. See autumn setting in on the farm and enjoy some fresh air and nature right in the heart of the Port Towns.
3:00 pm - Historic Window Preservation
An expert in conserving, restoring, and reproducing period window styles from the early eighteenth century to the early twentieth, Stephen will cover basic maintenance and repair techniques for old windows.
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Custom work from
Tanglewood Works
We're teaming up with our front porch partner Tanglewood Works to help you jump-start your upcycling journey! While you're at This Old Warehouse on Saturday, if you find a piece that you LOVE at a great price, BUT it needs some TLC, you're in luck! Tanglewood Works is offering 10% off their custom renovation service just for you.You can read all about their transformation process on their latest blog post. Contact Tanglewood Works at [email protected] and they will put together a quote just for you. If you get a larger piece, Tanglewood Works offers a delivery service as well.
We salvage it. You buy it. They'll transform it. You'll love it!
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More fun stuff coming up!
October 7th, November 4th, December 2nd
On Forklift First Fridays, we stay open late to throw a party! From 6pm - 8pm the first Friday of the month, meet other salvage-minded folks, enjoy craft beer, and check out the work of local artists. We have a different flash sale, food truck, and local band each month. Forklift Fans of all ages are welcome.
Lie-Nielsen Toolworks makes over 100 types of planes, saws, spokeshaves, chisels, floats and more. You can try their tools, ask questions, and experience how woodworking with hand tools is rewarding, quiet, and surprisingly efficient. During the event, you can also view Community Forklift's large selection of vintage tools (normally sold only online).
November 25th & 26th
After Thanksgiving, shop green, shop small, or don't shop at all - here's your excuse to stay away from the mall! We are celebrating community with live music, free gift-making workshops, local artists, and free photos with Santa for all ages.
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Win a $1,000 gift certificate
We know you've done some amazing projects. Now you just have to send us pictures!
Every year, Community Forklift joins reuse centers across the country to participate in The ReUse People Of America's National Reuse Contest. If you have recently finished a project using reused building materials, just send us pictures and a description for a chance to win awesome prizes. The contest closes on October 31, 2016. Visit our blog for all the details.
The odds are in your favor - Forklift Fans have won at nationals for the last three years!
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What is your toilet trying to tell you?
By Matt Menke, Vintage Plumbing Fixture Expert
There it sits, cool and steady. Your toilet has seen and heard it all and has (hopefully) never complained. But it does have a few interesting things to say to those who are curious enough to listen, right there under the lid. Step a little closer and take a look!
Under your toilet's tank lid there are almost always some markings, pressed into the clay. If you own an older toilet, say pre-1980, it probably says "Made in USA." American Standard fired toilets in places like Piscataway, New Jersey, for over a century. Globalization in the 1980's drove most toilet production to China with its hefty carbon footprint of about 2.33kg per toilet just for the freight. Consider our lost jobs and their weaker emissions laws and exploitative labor and you start to get an idea of the real cost of saving a few bucks at the store.
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Ming Green was the name of this color in American Standard's early color repertoire. It made a bold Art Deco statement when paired with mauve and peach tiles, as in this advertisement from the early 1930s. Courtesy OldHouseOnline
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If your toilet has stood that test of time, have you considered having a birthday party for it? All you need to know is when! If you really loved your toilet (and some people do), you totally would. Many models are stamped with the date they were molded: Mar 7 82, 11 6 52, or the like. The funny thing is, the tank and bowl are often marked as well, and might have been made months apart. Since every piece shrinks differently during firing, no two lids are identical and required hand-fitting to match with a tank that fit well.
The date is also a great tool for matching a toilet to a period-correct bath renovation. Toilet style lags well, um, behind the times because in this arena like no other, buyers prefer the familiar and reassuring. So by checking the date, you can make sure a new-to-you vintage toilet is what would have been for sale at the time your house was built. But remember, the greenest toilet is the one that's already installed and working. There are great retrofits to save water, but nothing can fix clashing style and failed flushes, aside from ripping out more pieces of your functional bathroom than you needed to.
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Matt carefully packs a vintage toilet in a custom-built crate for safekeeping
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And style is what it's all about, really. Toilets are little pieces of sculpture that we live with every day. Classics hark back to the heady postwar days of American ingenuity and design, built to work well for a very long time. If your lid has the number '4049' stamped on it, you have the square-shouldered classic American Standard Cadet tank. It was probably the biggest-selling model of the mid-Century period and a time-tested piece of engineering brilliance. It came in a rainbow of colors that big box can't touch: Coralin Pink, Regency Blue, Surf Green, Spice Mocha, you name it! In an age when every piece of design in our lives says something about us, why would anyone settle for the whitest common denominator?
And if while you're admiring your toilet, you happen to break that classic tank lid, we may just have your back. We have a stock of hundreds of orphaned tank lids for sale at $5 each. Just bring your lid and a tracing of your tank outline to compare.
So, what is your toilet trying to tell you? Please let us know!
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Community Giving Spotlight
by Alex Winter, Community Services Coordinator
As many Forklift Fans know, one of the best reasons to visit is to support our community giving programs! Thanks to all the folks who donate and shop with us, we're able to give away materials to help folks in need and support other organizations doing great work. We're incredibly happy to announce one of our newest nonprofit partnerships:
Green Door Behavioral Health provides compassionate, cost-effective, community-based care to individuals with serious and persistent mental illness. Around 26 percent of their clients are homeless at any given time.
Green Door employs the Housing First model, which prioritizes unconditional housing as a source of stability for people experiencing homelessness, and then provides the additional types of support (employment resources, medication management, counseling, etc.) needed for recovery. This means they have properties to manage, which is where the Forklift fits in!
Community Forklift recently awarded Green Door a grant that will allow them to pick up items free-of-cost from our store, which will help them renovate and furnish the homes of their clients. So far, they've picked up a paint sprayer that left their facility manager with a "kid in a candy store smile" on his face!
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This year, our friends at Christmas in April completed repairs on their 2,500th house in Prince George's County. This wonderful local nonprofit helps elderly, disabled, and low-income neighbors to live in comfort and dignity.
On Monday, September 26th, come to a golf tournament at Andrews Air Force Base to help raise money for next year's projects. To register or get more info, visit ChristmasInAprilPG.org
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Save money for your congregation
Did you know that there are FREE trees available for religious communities in Prince George's County? Trees for Sacred Places is a wonderful program that can help your congregation plant trees AND save on stormwater impact fees through Prince George's Alternative Compliance Program.
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Please note: monthly sales do not include items from our consignment partners, items sold online, select specialty items, or items with missing or damaged tags.
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Throughout September, take 50% off almost everything in the courtyard, including clawfoot and modern bathtubs, cast iron sinks, patio furniture, outdoor lumber, and security bars (they're also great for trellises!). Sale does not include masonry, landscaping stone, or any items inside the store.
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Paint-Palooza!
This month, take 50% off all sizes of paint, stains, & liquids. This sale includes donated paint, stain, adhesives, joint compound, and other types of liquid of all sizes. Please note: sale does NOT include Amazon Recycled Paint, grout, or powders.
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30% Off Radiators
Just in time to get ready for winter! This sale includes all vintage and modern radiators. Sale does not include electric radiators or radiator covers. Radiators may be returned for any reason within 3 week with receipt.
Unfortunately, our volunteers and staff are not able to help load radiators into your vehicle. However, we do offer one week of free storage so that you can round up friends with muscles and/or rent a truck.
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Free Cabinets!
Pick out "orphan" kitchen cabinets, cabinet doors, and cabinet drawers marked with orange tags of $15 or less, and take them home free of charge! While supplies last. Limit 3 per household. Freebie does not include other types of furniture, vanities, or cabinets that are part of sets.
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Granite Scrap Giveaway!
Pay zero dollars for all granite and marble counter pieces of 4 square feet or less! Giveaway does not include tile, pavers, or landscaping stones. But remember, small counter scraps can be turned into walkways and garden borders!
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We have a lot of vintage hardware and decor available in our Etsy store.
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Open 7 days a week, from 9 AM - 6 PM - and now open till 7 PM on Wednesdays & Fridays.
(Please drop off donations at least 30 minutes before closing time.)
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