DIY Dorm

Score big at local recycling stores

Andrea Norris
OSU’s Andrea Norris in the OSUsed StorePhoto by Trask Bedortha

Andrea Norris of OSU’s Campus Recycling says the weirdest thing she’s ever tried to sell at the OSUsed Store is an entire pallet of 20-year-old unused jock straps. Although they didn’t exactly fly off the shelves in the campus second-hand store, Norris put the jock straps on eBay, and they started selling fast. “It turns out there are antique jock strap collectors,” she says.

OK, so maybe you’re not looking for antique jock straps (and for the love of all that is holy do not Google that phrase), but recycling stores like the OSUsed Store in Corvallis and BRING Recycling in Eugene have a lot to offer students looking for low-cost, creative accouterments to brighten up dorms and apartments.

“There is no better place in Eugene for students,” says Julie Daniel, executive director of BRING Recycling. “We have loads of chairs, tables, desks and just cool and strange things.”

Daniel says students often come to the BRING Recycling store looking for inexpensive furnishings such as hollow core doors to build bookshelves or makeshift furniture. Students can also find quirky decorations at the store, using commercial signs to decorate their walls.

“Students often like strange things for strange reasons, and because they’re innovative, they can oftentimes make do with something very inexpensive,” Daniel says.

And if you need school supplies on the cheap, look no further than the OSUsed Store, OSU’s surplus property storefront. “We have a lot of binders,” Norris says. “Every time we talk to people we tell them to please never, ever buy binders, because we have them for free here.”

Besides a bookshelf full of binders, the OSUsed Store offers desks, office chairs, side tables, mugs, football shoes, vinyl records, books and a motley collection of random items that are both charming and inexpensive.

Check out the OSUsed Store’s Facebook page for DIY Friday suggestions, including how to turn a $20 filing cabinet into an adorable side table/dresser.

BRING Recycling is open 9 am to 5 pm Monday through Saturday and 10 am to 5 pm Sunday at 4446 Franklin Blvd. in Eugene, call 746-3023. The OSUsed Store is open noon to 3 pm every Wednesday at 644 S.W. 13th St. in Corvallis, call 737-7347. For used electronics (including laptops) check out Eugene’s NextStep Recycling ReUse store, open: 10 am to 6 pm Monday-Saturday and 11 am to 4 pm Sunday at 980 McKinley St. in Eugene, call 868-0904.