Junk Warehouse, Etc. turns trash into trendy home decor
Nestled on a tiny side street off Highway 14 in Lake Barrington, a row of block-style buildings house numerous auto body shops, an iron works and a company that manufactures gym mats.
Inside a space sandwiched between Commercial and Industrial avenues, color jumps off the walls, huge collections of antique chair and table legs lay in piles and a former chicken coop hammered to the wall doubles as a hanging shelf.
Junk Warehouse, Etc. can be essentially be considered a furniture and home decor shop, but the company really skirts classification.
The three owners call the company something between an indoor flea market and a vintage boutique for salvaged and re-purposed items.
“They took what would ordinarily be junk, like a pillar from a porch that’s falling down and they made it into a coat rack,” said Sue Gager, a customer and adult program supervisor for the Bensenville Park District. She organized a stop at the facility as part of an antique and resale shop tour for seniors in Bensenville.
Gager had previously purchased a shutter from the warehouse, attached a piece of cardboard behind it and now files bills in the slats.
“Everything here has a story to tell,” co-owner Ann Messner said. “That’s their character and people know there’s only one.”
Originally established in 2002, Junk Warehouse was conceived by Lori O’Callaghan, who is the master carpenter behind the business.
She was approached by a friend to start the business, but after about two years her partner moved on, leaving O’Callaghan the sole proprietor.
“I had contract employees, but with the economy, it was becoming difficult to stay open,” O’Callaghan said. “We had such loyal customers, because it became one of these destination places…not only as shopping place, but a meeting place.”
As the possibility of closing became more real, O’Callaghan started looking toward the future. She decided to bring two friends and long-time customers—Messner and Sharon Hughes—into the business.
“We started talking and I’d feel really good and then go home and say ‘I dunno,’” Messner said. “Then we’d be meeting again, and eventually we said ‘This feels right, let’s do it.’”
Messner and Hughes, otherwise known as the Etc., joined this year and the three re-launched Junk Warehouse as Junk Warehouse, Etc. in mid-November.
“We’re hanging up the apron and putting on a tool belt,” Messner said.
“We all have different strong points,” O’Callaghan said. “Sharon has a marketing background and Ann is business know-how. She keeps us on the straight and narrow.”
“Lori’s our fearless leader,” Hughes said. “[She] can drill in the dark.”
Junk Warehouse, Etc.’s 4,000-square-foot space is a showroom, warehouse and workshop where O’Callaghan works to restore, repurpose and repaint her projects. Often, pieces leave the showroom looking completely different than when they entered it.
They’ve created wine glass charms from the ear tags made for cows and designated an installation of gym lockers as a large-scale shelving unit.
The women travel around and visit different flea markets, antique stores and junk shops to find pieces.
“We go out of the area as much as possible,” O’Callaghan said. “You wanna stick with old places.”
“I meet people at flea markets, who say, ‘Come out, see my barn,’” Hughes said. “You get lots of ideas. It’s a frenzy that feeds on you.”
Although Hughes and Messner may know how to hunt down new pieces and display them in the showroom, the work that takes place in the workshop is still very much O’Callaghan’s domain.
“Lori’s most talented,” Hughes said. “She’s like MacGyver.”
Though not a known secret agent with a penchant to make a missile out of bubble gum, as the television character might have, Hughes said that when she walks into the workshop, she’ll often find O’Callaghan on a 6-foot ladder with a drill.
“She is teaching us,” Messner said. “The day we opened, when we finished…she gave us little handheld electric drills.”
The gesture was meant to encourage the two new business partners to get into the construction aspect of the company.
“I don’t want to tell anyone they can’t do something,” O’Callaghan said.
In fact, she uses her expertise to teach workshops and seminars at the Junk Warehouse, where customers can restore furniture, paint a piece they already own or even re-purpose something they found in her shop.
“Somebody asked if my dad taught me,” O’Callaghan said. “He never said ‘No,’ never said I couldn’t do it, but it was my mom. She’s incredible, she’s my mentor., always very handy. She taught me, ‘Don’t waste anything.’”
—By Michelle Stoffel, Triblocal.com reporter
