Kyle Dubay, 34 and his partner, Bo Shepherd, 32, make a living giving old treasures a new life. Together, the couple own and operate Woodward Throwbacks, a Detroit-based furniture and home goods store that designs and builds its pieces with reclaimed materials found in the Motor City.
The salvagers are always on the lookout for their next project. When they heard about an abandoned home with "great bones" in Detroit's North End, a predominately African American neighborhood of small businesses and churches about ten minutes from downtown, they jumped at the opportunity.
The three-story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home was available for sale through The Detroit Land Bank Authority, an agency with a mission to return run-down and vacant properties in the city to productive use. Each year, the DBLA auctions off thousands of publicly-owned properties through its platform, with bidding sometimes starting as low as $1,000.
In 2019, Dubay and Shepherd purchased the North End home from the DBLA for $6,500. Over the course of three years, the pair put their all and about $300,000 into refurbishing the home. While they did most of the work by themselves, they relied on family, friends, as well as several local businesses that provided them with materials for the renovation.
Last month, they sold the home for $410,000. See how the couple transformed the old decaying home into a luxurious property by using recycled materials like old basketball court floorboards and science lab countertops.
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