Volunter adds life to Habitat store items

When Theodora Sallee, 65, started volunteering at the Habitat Spokane Builders Surplus Store, she worked in customer service as a cashier, but she dreamed of doing so much more.

“When she first came here, she remodeled both of our bathrooms,” store director Jeff Howard said.

Now, she turns items that might not sell at all into family heirlooms.

She refurbishes items such as desks or tables to increase their value. An old table that has been sitting outside of the store might ordinarily sell for $10, but after Sallee adds her finishing touches, it could sell for $125.

“I’m an HGTV junkie,” she said. She said gets some of her ideas from the cable home improvement network and also gets some ideas from the pieces themselves.

“I’ll just look at something and say, ‘Oh!’ ” she said of her inspiration.

Habitat for Humanity raises funds to help low-income families get their own home. Recipients of Habitat homes pitch in 500 hours of their own labor into the homes and must provide a down payment and their monthly mortgage payments.

The Habitat Store provides financial support to the program and last year, raised enough funds to build five houses.

The store has around 45 core volunteers and about 100 volunteers a month through Goodwill, AARP, school programs and elsewhere.

“Without volunteers, we just don’t survive,” Howard said.

Sallee feels that increasing the value of something for sale at the store is important, since a little bit of her own work gets more money for Habitat.

She began volunteering at the store shortly after she moved to Spokane a little more than two years ago from Whidbey Island, Wash. She retired from the Coast Guard as a yeoman.

She not only volunteers at the Habitat Store. She also volunteers with the Friends of Manito, where she catalogs plants into a computer program called Gardenware.

Sallee spends time creating ideas for do-it-yourselfers. She’ll make a display item of something, and customers can buy the materials to make at home.

She used to ask for approval about the materials she would use from the store’s supplies, but now she just picks through the materials and takes what she needs. The store receives donations on a regular basis, and often the staff will set aside items for her.

The perfect item for her in the store is one with “good bones.” It may be scratched or weather-beaten but it has good structure and can be turned into treasure.

She takes old bi-fold doors and covers them with wallpaper to make room dividers. She’ll find surplus drawers and turn them into flower boxes.

The store received a donation of 50,000 wallpaper rolls, and she will make gift bags with it. The rolls sell for $1 each at the store, so she looks for ways to help move them out the door.

Sallee’s projects generally sell in the Eclectic Corner of the store. That is where customers find antiques or refurbished items for a real bargain.

“I’m always happy when something sells,” she said.

She’s not sure how many hours a week she dedicates to her projects at the Habitat Store, but if she can’t finish a project there, sometimes she’ll take it home with her.

The store asks volunteers to contribute at least four hours a week, and Sallee is hoping that someone will come in to help her with the projects, such as refinishing old chests of drawers.

For now, she’s content doing the work by herself.

“I’m loving it,” she said. “I don’t know why I’d want to quit.”