Shopper’s Diary: A Resale Marketplace for Unused Residential Construction Goods

Just about every remodeling project ends up with perfectly good leftovers: extra tiles and doorknobs, the light fixture deemed wrong for the room, the kitchen faucet and medicine cabinet that never found a home. Unbuilt, a new construction salvage business based in Los Angeles, is devoted to consigning and reselling these perfectly good goods.

LA contractor/builder Joan Barton of Dirty Girl Construction has been happily sending her surplus to Unbuilt in recent months and tipped us off about the company. It’s the brainchild of Sara Noyes, who was distressed by the surplus she experienced firsthand as a designer and project manager for a boutique LA architecture firm. Noyes created and runs Unbuilt with Matt Kennedy, a college friend with startup creds who knows all about consignment from his mother’s resale clothing business.

“An estimated 10 percent of all building materials ordered each year remain unused in final construction,” they note. “Much of this waste is high quality and reusable but difficult for builders and property owners to monetize.” Unbuilt is a resale marketplace for selling and buying this inventory. Come take a look at some of the current offerings.

Lighting

Unbuilt’s aim, says Sara, was to “provide the construction and design industry with a resource for monetizing items that would have otherwise have sat in storage or gone to the landfill.” The business currently only sells top-of-the-line unused and new condition items, but salvage could be in their future.

See the Caravaggio and others like it in 10 Easy Pieces: Black Pendant Lights.

Kitchen

Unbuilt’s inventory comes from throughout California, and from out of state consignors who are able to hold onto their goods until they sell—these are labeled “sell from site.” The company sells to the general public worldwide—Unbuilt has drop-off and pickup locations in LA and SF, and takes care of crating, if necessary, and pick up or shipping. “Our customers are savvy and know a good deal when they see one,” says Sara. “We had a buyer in Japan who bought a box of Heath tile.”

Bathroom

All goods come with the proviso: “while providing accurate listing information and authentic products is a priority, since we sell products secondhand, it is not possible for us to guarantee with 100 percent confidence that mistakes or errors, unintentional, or intentionally created by our suppliers are not present in some cases on the site. If you suspect that a description or authenticity error has taken place, please see our ‘return policy’ to understand your options.”

Tile

Windows and Doors

Stay tuned: Unbuilt has ambitions to expand its operations beyond California.

Embarking on a remodel or DIY project and in need of advice? Read about Matriarchy Build, a new, all-women service of building pros on standby to offer online help.