FEATURE Upcycling Buying and selling antiques is in Cammie Metheny’s blood. The Laurel, Neb., woman remembers, as a child, going with her parents to auction after auction buying up items long past their prime, blowing off the dust and finding them a new home. She didn’t much care for the family pastime when she was very young, but over time, she developed a passion that rivaled that of her parents’. Today, Cammie and her husband, David, have found a way to make this sideline their life’s work. “This is what we do for a living now,” Cammie said. “This is the fourth year neither of us have had a regular job, where we’re treating this as a business and not as a hobby.” The Methenys own 106 Vintage Co., which mostly supplies store owners around the Midwest with vintage items, original or remade. They also take part in eight or so sales a year in the surrounding states where they meet additional store owners and potential customers. Recently, Cammie and David purchased Coleridge, Neb.’s former opera house that they’re renovating into a showroom—uncovering 18-foot tin ceilings, wood floors and wall frescoes depicting cities from New York to California. “We bought it, because we needed to expand the business and thought we’d use it for storage,” Cammie said. “But when we began to renovate, it just snowballed from there. Right now, we’re painstakingly steaming paint off the frescoes. I did one last night, and it took five hours.” While the Methenys continue to deal in antiques, Cammie’s specialty the past 20 years is more in remaking vintage items for modern use, also known as repurposing or, in today’s terms: upcyling. “Upcycling is taking something you currently have and looking at it in a different way and giving something a new life in a new way,” she said, like turning old fencing into baskets, house trim into boxes, banister spindles into lamp bases and croquet mallets UPCYCLING continued on page 6 Va rico se vein s a re n o t a lw ays a co sm etic issu e. Varicose vein s an d heavy,pain ful • O utpatient therapy legs can n ow be treated w ith the • M in im ally invasive • Fast an d m ild recovery VN U S Closure® procedure. • Covered by m ost in suran ce & M edicare Foryourtotal vein care, callnow : w w w .yan kton surgical.com 605.668.9670 phon e Lew is & Clark M edicalPlaza,2525 Fox Run Parkw ay,Suite 204,Yan kton SD Kynan C.Trail M D,FACS , HERVOICE MAY/JUNE 2014 v 5