More Trash Pile Treasures

Although I am a great fan of thrift stores, does anything beat free? In that light, here are a few of my trashy-treasured discoveries over the last year:

My Front Porch Chair

This beauty was on the trash pile a few blocks away from my house.  I spotted it while walking in my neighborhood the night before garbage pick-up and RAN (really I did) home to get my car before someone else snatched it up.  I didn't even have to paint it - it was already this fabulous grey-blue color.  Can you believe it?  The only thing wrong was the lower right front leg had a bit of loose wicker, that I easily tucked and hot glued.  Yea for me!!! Free chair!!!

Here is the leg that was ever-so-slightly unraveling.    I  tacked it with the glue gun and stuck a plant in front of it (cause I'm sneaky like that).

  I don't know what to call this next item, but I liked it when I saw it on another neighbor's trash (my poor neighbors; I hope they never put anything personal and embarrassing out there):

Don't stop here! Keep reading »

Trash Pile Treasures

My life has been on hold the last three years as I returned to teaching high school.  Whew.  After having no life outside of teaching, planning, meeting, and grading, and even though I greatly enjoy the teaching-and-being-with-the-students part, I have decided to retire from teaching for now to do what I love...spending more time with my family, serving my church, and finding trashy treasures to repurpose or rehab. I hope this blog will be a diary of that last part.  

I made a great restart today (the day before trash pick-up), as I made great finds on the curbs around my home.  Wanna see?

 I sure hope my neighbors don't read my blog.  

 This chair is in perfect shape - just some cobwebs.  Been in their garage, perhaps?

 A sofa!  It does have some outward issues (see below for an example) and is a bit dirty, but I am willing to attempt cleaning it and making a slipcover for it.

I think this is for holding plants, maybe??

I hope my husband is still speaking to me after he gets home and discovers my most recent acquisitions. I promise I am going to get down to the basement to clean up, honey. Soon!

My First Post: About Me

The basement - where the magic happens!

Hello, my name is Patty, and I am a trashoholic (if that's a word).  I love other people's castoffs.  You know - those things that other humans have deemed used-up, no-good, ugly, broken, "past their peak", or, more simply, trash.  Goodwill, Salvation Army Store, Habitat for Humanity Restore, my neighbors' trash piles, Craigslist, etc..., these places are where I find my treasures.  I know that it is a sickness, or at least my poor family believes it is. They cringe when we go driving through the neighborhood on the night before garbage pick-up in my trusty 8 year-old Suburban and we cannot pass a promising-looking pile without stopping for mom to take a peak.  I like to think of it as "keeping the landfill emptier by filling up my basement." One of these days I am going to actually finish refurbishing, repairing, and repainting all of those cast-offs, and my husband is going to beam, look at me lovingly, and say (in an amazed and adoring voice) "Let's go look on the curb for more treasure!"  Yeah, I know I am dreaming: about actually finishing everything in my basement, as well as my husband being willing to go trash-picking with me.  Because, as long as I breathe, I am never caught-up.  It's always something.