Recycler saves nearly everything – including her childhood home

Jeannette Saville saved the bricks her grandfather collected from the streets of Spokane and created a path from the home's front porch, around to the side of the house. Thrifty phrases Jeannette Saville shares her Top 10 list of thrift and reuse phrases she says she frequently heard as a child: 1. Make do with what you have. 2. Nothing is a waste of time if you use the time wisely. 3. We're saving for a rainy day. 4. Hold on to what you have. 5. Find the value in all things. 6. A penny saved is a penny earned. 7. One man's junk is another man's treasure. 8. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 9. Try to find a good use for everything. 10. Waste not, want not.

The end of another year. A time for reflection and resolutions. Spokane Valley resident Jeannette Saville fondly reflects on a drawer full of old shoelaces she found at her mother's house.

"There were leather and cotton ones," she remembers. "Brown, yellow, black. Too many to count and no visible matching pairs." Saville says her mother had many similar collections of seemingly marginal materials. So why not throw such things in a trash bag and be done with them?

"It was just painful for her to dispose of anything that might still be useful, like old shoelaces for tying tomato plants to stakes," Saville says. Her own house, she admits, has some of the same characteristics as her mother's.

In fact, Saville's house is the old family home, a cedar shake-sided 1920's bungalow once located on Sprague Avenue where Target is now. "It had only two bedrooms, so we moved because our family needed more space," she says. "But we didn't sell the old house. We kept it and rented it commercially. It was a flower shop at one time."

But in the 1980's, Saville's mother, Pat Lacroix, sold the property to Fred Meyer whose officials eventually sold it to Target. However, the buyer only wanted the land, not the house. Lacroix hated the thought of the house getting knocked down – something that still had value being destroyed – and offered it to her daughter.

Saville says she'd always loved the house's charm, especially "the cozy front porch where you could put a table and chairs and have tea." But she also appreciated the house's potential. "On the right piece of land, you could put a full daylight basement under it and add a bath and a couple bedrooms," she says.

She found the right piece of property on Boone Avenue. It was an agrarian acre with a cherry orchard, but more important, it had a grade that gently sloped from north to south. With the property purchase complete, in 1984. Saville had the house moved onto a basement foundation, and increased the house's value by adding an attached garage. She had recycled an old house into a new home.

Once she and her family were settled, she continued with her recycling ways by implementing a family waste management plan. In a closet near her kitchen, Saville set up a "short-term holding center," vegetable bins stacked and lined with plastic bags, for the household recyclables. "Our children have grown up with the virtues of recycling built into their daily routine," Saville says. "Each day they sort for every one of the main categories taken at the recycling centers."

Saville's children, Charstie and Taylor, remove labels from tin cans, crush aluminum, sort colored glass, smash plastic jugs and bottles, collect and tie bundles of newspaper, and layer magazines in empty dog food bags. Once sufficient recyclables have accumulated inside, they are taken outside to a much larger, self-contained recycling bin built by her husband Mike. The bin holds five jumbo black trash bags. When they are full, the family takes them to the Valley Transfer Station recycling center.

"We are a family of four and I'm proud to say our solid waste is less than one full garbage can a week," Saville says. "I think that's a pretty good record."

"In my family, we were raised to know the value of simple things," Saville remembers. "We stretched dollars. We wore hand-me-downs. We ate leftovers. We made toys out of plastic bottles, paper dolls from magazine models. What began in childhood as a way of surviving in a not-so-prosperous but hard-working environment has become a responsible way to live."