It's certainly not a junkyard, but the stuff isn't new either -- it's Happy Harry's, the new store in Kelowna that sells recycled building materials, windows, cupboards, plumbing and light fixtures, architectural artifacts and almost anything else imaginable needed for building or renovation.

"We're an interesting place," says Kelowna's Happy Harry (real name Doug Brown) with understatement. In fact, Happy Harry's is the only store of its kind in Kelowna.

"We're a building centre without the building centre prices."

But thus said, Brown says he's not really in competition with the building centers because the people that shop Happy Harry's on Ellis street across from the Health Unit are those that won't pay regular retail. It's either they get the stuff they need for their renovation on the cheap or the work doesn't get done.

A stroll through Happy Harry's reveals a myriad of materials from lumber, roofing, siding, fencing and brick culled from house demolition sites to what Brown calls "architectural artifacts" -- columns, pedestal sinks, claw-footed tubs and interesting moldings.

"I have an old entrance way here that we got from a mansion demolition. It's an antique. You just can't find stuff like that other places," he says.

Brown gets his stock from three sources: houses demolitions, buying cancelled order new windows and joe public selling him stuff they don't want anymore. House demolitions work two ways.

Brown has built up an awareness with contractors that do demolitions and he's allowed to go in with a crew and pick out whatever he thinks can be reused (thus reducing the amount taken to the dump and the dump tipping fee the contractor has to pay). Also, Brown bids on demolition jobs himself and does the whole job from picking the place over for items to resell to the actual knock down.

The only new stock he carries is windows from manufacturers that were left in a lurch by a last-minute order cancellation or made the windows a little too small or a little too big for the standard. He buys the windows cheap from the manufacturer and sells them on for below the wholesale price.

Five years ago while stationed with the air force in Manitoba, Brown met the original Happy Harry -- Harry Bohna of Winnipeg. Bohna has two such stores in Winnipeg and when Brown moved to Kelowna and was thinking of opening a business, Bohna suggested Happy Harry's. Brown pays what he calls a "token franchise fee" to Bohna.

Currently the Happy Harry's chain includes the two stores in Winnipeg, two in Calgary, one in Red Deer and the one in Kelowna.

Copyright 2006 Happy Harry's Used Building Materials. All rights reserved

Return to Previous Page
Return to Happy Harry's HomePage