West End Salvage - Season 2

Don and the crew at West End Salvage are approached by clients who recently relocated from nearby Nebraska. The wife is in the middle of giving her football loving husband the ultimate Corn Husker haven in their basement. They task the team with finishing off the space with a perfect bar. Inspired by their story, Don gets the Basement Boys to build a custom piece with two acutal vintage corn huskers as the foundation. Meanwhile, Don takes the difficult job of turning a heavy glove mold press into a lamp and pawns it off on Joe.

The West End Salvage team is asked to create tables for a local brewery. Inspired by the nearby bike trail, they deconstruct vintage bikes to incorporate handlebars, wheels and more into moveable tables. Don is surprised with the extra effort Rex and Brian are putting in to the project after they are promised some beer from the brewery. Hal and Joe purchase an old Jon Boat from some pickers and are determined to transform it in to something that's never been seen before. While sawing the boat in half, they make a surprising discovery, a treasure more than a century old.

No space, no problem! This could be the new motto for the men at West End Salvage. When Audrey and Dylan bring the boys their most compact project to date, the guys rise to the challenge. Using some ingenuity from the early twentieth century, some salvage from their favorite spot, Iowa farms, and some old fashioned elbow grease, the guys come up with a fantastic solution to Audrey and Dylan's kitchen seating needs. The busy team even has time to build an elegant wine glass chandelier made of old farm wheels for Don's friend Kristi. But Rex has the icing on the cake, he takes an old, non-selling jukebox from the fourth floor and makes something supremely one of a kind. Then to top it all off, Hal buys a monkey sprinkler from a picker that you're going to have to see to believe.

When clients come to the shop with a vintage trunk, Don suggests turning the family heirloom into a six-foot high shelving unit. Although they are hesitant at first, the owners agree and the guys get busy slicing the unit into four pieces while preserving as much history as possible. Meanwhile, a picker brings by three old, oversized carts that were once used by The Des Moines Register to move piles of papers around their facilities. Don re-imagines the carts as dumbbell storage for a local gym and adds lightning rods and punched metal as decorative pieces. At the same time, the guys take an early 1900's icebox and convert it into album storage for the hipster set that may or may not live in Des Moines.

After meeting with two clients who run a yoga studio out of their downtown loft, Don and Hal draw up plans to create a multi-functional dividing screen and desk made of church organ pipes they often have at the shop. The problem is that they currently only have a few pipes in stock, so the duo head off to a closed down church to harvest enough to make the piece. There, Hal and Don have to make their way through a dark, dusty crawlspace to reach the pipes, then wiggle their way back out to salvage each and everyone. Meanwhile, back at the shop, Brian has made up his mind to turn a vintage gas canister into a vanity light by cutting into it with a grinder. Don thinks the vanity could look amazing as long as Brian doesn't blow himself up in the process.

After salvaging a round window from a one-hundred year old home, Don tasks Rex with turning it into a coffee table that will make him at least $600. The guys also source some turn-of-the-century chicken coops to use as the foundation for a clients sewing desk. At the same time, the whole team pitches in to convert a vintage wooden phone booth into wine display and storage for a new restaurant. When the client suggests flipping the accordion-styled door so it opens out instead of in, the simple build gets a lot harder to complete.

Don gets the deal of a lifetime when a loyal customer drops by with an old, broken piano. The customer wants Don to create a coffee table from the top of the instrument, and in return, Don gets to keep the rest of the piece to do with as he pleases. With nothing to lose, Don and Hal turn around and saw the shell in half to create shelving designed to flank a fireplace. At the same time, Rex buys a vintage Murphy bed off some pickers and uses it create a shoe storage that hides away. The project drives a wedge between Don and Rex who both want to claim the piece as their own.

The West End Salvage team is hired to build a dining room table for a family of six using 300-year-old windows and shutters. When Rex realizes the windows are much larger than expected, the only solution is to trim down the shutters and cut the glass to size. Don is nervous about cutting the glass since it's 300 year old, irreplaceable glass! If Rex messes this up, the project will be over. At the same time, Hal and Don visit an old Model T wrecking company that hasn't been open to the public for over 50 years. The building is like a time capsule, housing tons of interesting old car parts. Hal purchases 20 different headlamps that he plans to make a cluster chandelier out of. Meanwhile, Brian and Joe have been tasked with building a bookshelf out of old plane parts for a client but they don't like Don's drawing. They make big changes to Don's design and he's not happy when he finds out.

After meeting with the president of the Iowa Speedway, Don and the guys are hired to create three different tailgating games for the track's 25,000 fans to use on race days. Each game needs to tie into automobile history but the shop is short on vintage car parts. To find enough pieces to work with, Don and Hal gain access to an auto graveyard which features hundreds of rusting cars just parked in a forest. Once back at the shop, Don has trouble getting Rex and Brian to complete the custom builds in the tight, two-week timeframe the track has requested. Something that's not helping his cause is Hal, who wants a new, mid-century modern mailbox for his own home and has secretly moved his pet project up to the front of the line.

Having gained access to a local foundry that is liquidating some of its out-of-date stock, Don puts himself on a strict $10,000 maximum budget for the pick. But he's soon regretting his decision as the massive facility is packed with vintage carts, wheelbarrows and foundry molds for as far as the eye can see. Joe takes a liking to one of the metal carts and decides to reinvent it as an industrial chair. Don does not share his vision but Joe takes it down to the shop to have it ripped apart and put back together. Meanwhile, Rex brings in an old friend who is shopping for a custom desk. Taking cues from the exposed wood ceiling beams in the client's office building, Don proposes constructing a desk that looks like a stack of wood on a pallet. The client is hesitant at first, but decides to trust Don and hires West End on to create the one-of-a kind item.

The West End team is up to their eyeballs in doors! Don has piles of doors stashed away on the fourth floor and Hal is determined to thin the collection out. When they are hired to build a headboard, Hal suggests using several of the doors they have upstairs to create a gigantic showpiece. The client loves the idea but wants it done in just a week. With the pressure on to finish this massive project, Rex makes a big mistake that puts delivering the project on time in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Brian's project also involves doors. Don wants to make a steam punk coffee table out of a fire door he just purchased from a picker. Problem is, the steel-wrapped door weighs about 200 pounds! Don gives Brian cart blanche on the project but when Don sees what Brian's up to, he reconsiders.

Although West End Salvage isn't often asked to create outdoor pieces, after meeting clients looking for some yard furniture, Hal and Don accept the challenge. As a weather resistant material, Hal proposes using fire hose made from vinyl. It's easy to work with but hard to find and Hal ends up overpaying some pickers for the product. Meanwhile, Brian is spending the store's money just as easily, buying a vintage washtub he plans to turn into a pedestal sink. With so much money flying around, Don decides to keep it frugal and work with what he has in shop, upcycling the remnants of a 9-foot tall church screen into a one-of-a-kind headboard.

Instead of waiting for the good finds to come to them, Don and Hal head out to go picking at a bat-infested barn north of town. There, they manage to grab a vintage tire rack and some Victorian roof cresting before Hal gets too freaked out by wild critters and vacates the premises in a hurry. Back at the shop, Don has a client looking for a custom bike rack and room divider, and he assigns Brian the task of upcycling the tire rack in the piece. Meanwhile, the guys create a unique display case for an avid baseball collector. Hal also buys a salvaged rug and much to Don's disbelief, attempts to create a one-of-a-kind chair that mimics the look of a flying carpet. Yes, a flying carpet.