Green Garage to expand by summer's end

Between five and eight environmentally-focused companies will move into Tom and Peggy Noonan's Green Garage in Midtown, which will roll open its doors to offer Detroit a sustainable center for going green. The couple, who purchased the warehouse with retirement money, have transformed the vacant building into an almost completely efficient building (think rain water catching systems, solar panel energy and more). A team of entrepreneurs working out of the Garage are also doing business by the same ethos.

One company moving into the Green Garage is building furniture -- but this isn't your ordinary hand-crafted stuff.

Excerpt:

Their merchandise will be made from wood and other materials they gather from abandoned homes in Detroit. The entrepreneur plans to purchase the materials from the rightful owners, such as the city or a bank. To make the furniture more meaningful, the owner plans to engrave the house address that the materials came from right onto the furniture. He also plans to include a brief history of the home the material came from so the owner of the furniture can own a small piece of Detroit's history.

Check out the story and slideshow here.