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In a world of fast fashion, mass production and rampant waste, two Redwood City residents are making furniture, light fixtures and other home goods out of salvaged materials, turning what might otherwise languish as trash into functional, aesthetically pleasing treasure. You may have encountered products by their company, TroubleHouse, around town. Seen the eye-catching light fixture at Fireside Books and More or the tap handles at Ghostwood, for example? They’re the work of TroubleHouse’s John Eames and Chris Pilek.
The two met as neighbors and became good friends, thanks in part to their shared love of finding creative purpose in reclaimed materials. TroubleHouse’s tagline is “craft and salvage for the community,” reflecting a mission to source materials locally, keep them in circulation and honor their past lives while giving them a new purpose.
“I have trouble walking by a dumpster without looking into it, especially in this day and age, where they tear down these nice houses, they throw it all into a dumpster, and there’s so much reusable material,” Pilek said at an interview at Little Green A Plant Bar – another Redwood City business that showcases some of TroubleHouse’s goods. “At a time when materials are so expensive, being able to get some salvaged material and repurpose it, I think, is important, for a variety of reasons, but also it’s just a good source of, kind of preserving what is going away around here. You see a lot of this concrete going up taking the place of wood. The look and feel, everything’s very sterile and manufactured,” he said.
TroubleHouse, on the other hand, celebrates the “patina of life” that settles on materials with a history.
The hunt for salvaged materials
In addition to dumpster dives, the two search for “curb scores,” rescue dead branches trimmed from local trees and visit salvage yards to find suitable material.
“Friends that do construction, they’ll keep an eye out for parts and pieces; friends that are arborists provide oak limbs or parts and pieces of the trees,” Eames said. Junk and salvage yards are getting harder to come by, but a good local source is Placemakers in San Carlos, which offers a showroom of all kinds of salvaged building materials and artifacts from construction and demolition projects, from vintage bricks to Victorian bathtubs and toilets and much more.
We polish it up and make this beautiful thing where you can see the history, and it’s getting used again.
John Eames
Eames and Pilek work out of their respective yards and garages –TroubleHouse is the name Eames gave his own home – so when local businesses display their work, either as part of the business’ own decor or to sell on consignment, it provides a nice way of showing off what they can do as well as freeing up space at their homes to make more.
“You put something in a store like this and someone takes home a part of their community, and that helps that circle of life, but it’s also fun,” Pilek said, pointing at some of their work on the wall at Little Green.
From discards to decor with a story
A favorite ongoing project is their tap handles made from old wooden-handled tools and other reclaimed materials. They find the tools at second-hand stores, garage sales and giveaways.
“We polish it down and then refinish it. What we leave there is some of the history that was with that handle, some of the old paint, screws that were in it, markings that were on it, but we polish it up and make this beautiful thing where you can see the history, and it’s getting used again,” Eames said.
Library Branch, the light fixture featuring books and bulbs suspended from the branch of a sycamore, installed at Fireside Books and More, is a good example of TroubleHouse’s community ethos. The piece is one of Eames’ and Pilek’s favorites because of its blend of artistry and functionality, involving technical and electrical skills, unique design and salvaged materials.
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In talks with Fireside’s owners, Pilek and Eames proposed a lighting feature made from a branch, inspired by some pieces TroubleHouse had made for Blue Oak Brewing Company in San Carlos, but weren’t sure where they’d get a large enough branch. Walking his child to school the very next morning, Pilek came across an 11-foot tree branch, “full of twists and character,” lying across the sidewalk and in the landscaping of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. While he was contemplating how to complete his morning tasks and scramble back in time to pick it up before it was cleared, he happened to encounter just the right person – the Mt. Carmel facilities manager, who happily agreed to keep it for him until he could return, and was eager to follow the project and send the Mt. Carmel staff to visit the branch in its new downtown home. The working name for the piece, Pilek noted, was Serendipity. Fireside also has some of TroubleHouse’s smaller items for sale in the shop.
Building community, not just furniture
When it comes to spreading the word about their creative endeavors, “I just talk to everybody,” Pilek said with a laugh. The pair values forging good old-fashioned, organic connections rather than slick marketing and online networking, although the website was recently revamped.
Some of their current pieces include benches made from reclaimed redwood wine vats and vintage leather pommel horses.
Both Pilek and Eames are East Coast transplants and both have always had a penchant for making. Eames, who earned a Master in Fine Arts in sculpture, works as a fine artist. Pilek, whose day job is in energy efficiency, “just grew up in the country; you made good use of everything around you,” he said. “End of the day, it’s just painful to see things wasted.”
The TroubleHouse team enjoys working in collaboration with clients to create custom pieces. Other local artisans and makers may also appear under the TroubleHouse umbrella. For example, the website currently includes some work by ceramic artist Mike Tillson. Pilek and Eames encourage anyone interested in commissioning a project or sharing an idea to reach out.
“We’re up for any challenge,” Pilek said. “Whether it’s very, very, very artistic or very functional, it’s still gonna have the same vibe of Troublehouse.”
More information is available at troublehouse.org and .instagram.com/troublehousedesign.
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