L.A. contractor with a sixth sense for roadside relics rebuilds his red-flagged house

Al Teman has a penchant for salvage, but his Silver Lake home in no way resembles a salvage yard. Old doors are neatly stacked in storage. Antique books, magazines and other ephemera are painstakingly sorted by genre, with labels such as “Communism,” “Scientology,” “Old Menus” and “Crazy Headlines From Newspapers.” Teman, a contractor, may have clients who want new granite countertops and pristine custom cabinetry, but his own home reflects an obsession with repurposing the old.

The front gate features recycled window shutters and a found sculpture. “Everything in the house is found,” Teman says of the goods he has discovered in the trash or along the side of the road. “The stuff is there for free everywhere. You just have to find it.” (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

Sept. 16, 2014 10:54 AM PT

Teman balances rocks to create a sculpture on the sleeping porch at the front of his Silver Lake home. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

Teman kicks back on the best Scrabble bed in all of America, a frame and mattress relocated under a canopy outside, where he likes to play the game. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

Teman, who makes custom guitars on the side, relaxes on his front porch flanked by antique trunks and other found objects. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

The suitcases are filled with, among other things, lots of toys for his kids. Inside, very little is original to the 1909 house, which was red-tagged after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

Between the dining room and kitchen, a brick alcove made from salvaged chimney bricks serves as a backdrop for a dartboard. The ambience is what Teman calls the quintessential guy house. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

Hundreds of doorknobs fill drawers in an oversized armoire partly built out of large wood boxes, picture frames and Victorian molding. Another drawer serves as a repository for wigs and muumuus. For parties, Teman says. I have so many pieces of things that I cant let go of. The living room floor was salvaged from a high school basketball court that was demolished. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

Glass jars lining a shelf inside Temans workshop are filled with buttons and knobs, old pins and military paraphernalia materials to be used later to decorate the acoustic guitars that the contractor creates on the side. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

Squeamish readers, please click through to the next picture. Teman transformed a bedroom into a bathroom, with a claw-foot tub he scored for $25 and yes, that is a urinal trough repurposed as a long sink. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

In what had been a closet, Teman created a record room complete with stacks of LPs, groovy lava lamps and an old-fashioned vinyl player. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)

The reason Al Teman bought the condemned 1909 home in Silver Lake: a view of downtown Los Angeles from the living room.

For tours of more Southern California homes classic, beautiful and bizarre look for our Homes of The Times gallery. (Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)