Architectural salvage is nothing new; it's been around for ages.
You go to a warehouse and cruise through miles of utterly charming wrought-iron fence, claw-foot tubs, and pedestal sinks. You leave with dreams of past lives dancing in your head.

That's both good and bad. Architectural salvage can be very exclusive, concentrating only on high-end building materials.

But you can also find recycling hubs that sell building materials for the rest of us.

Need used laminate flooring or a single gallon of Thundershield Concrete Paint or three "enormous argon-filled Marvin double hung window[s]"? Lots of people do.

Diggers List and Habitat for Humanity ReStore Resale Outlets are two prominent examples.

Another, greenGoat, based in Somerville, MA offers many of the building materials that proles such as myself can use (a French country-style stove hood, a 50 gallon Ruud water heater, a new-but-antique-looking fireplace mantel, etc.), as well as more rarified objects such as metal Tudor style windows from a mid-1930s brick home.

So if you're looking for recycled building materials in the Somerville/Boston/Cambridge Massachusetts area, check out greenGoat.