trash talkin'

This is such a strange statement...

 my city has the best trash.

(I can't believe I just said that.)

On a weekly basis I find the most beautiful things...ornate furniture, chandeliers, cool old metal boxes and trays, gorgeous old doors with chippy paint...it is simply amazing to me what people will throw away! Like anything, some weeks picking are better than others...and I know just what area of town I like to visit to find the era of stuff I am looking for, what night their trash goes out, etc. Now that I am putting this is writing, I sound like a total freak stalking people's trash...but I am ok with that. There is a science to this trash-picking stuff, you know!

I am just so swoony over my finds from Sunday night...so I had to show you.


My favorite find of the week...an old wood medical cabinet.

She's got chippy gray paint, lots of drawers on the front and the sides, too...

And her solid oak top is perfectly weathered and worn...

~ sigh ~

Isn't she pretty??

Ok, maybe all of you won't think so...but I do!

It was love at first sight. The kind of love that made me nearly have a heart attack when I realized it was so heavy there was no way I could load it in my truck by myself! The 6 minute car ride from the curb where I found it back to my house to grab my big strong husband nearly felt like an eternity!! I was convinced it would be snapped up while I was gone.

But she was still there...waiting for me...

While I am talkin' trash, I may as well show you some of my other finds.... 

A gorgeous vintage chandi with all the crystals...(they were nice enough to put them in a ziploc before throwing them away. I felt like I needed to leave them a little thank you note!)

Here is a tip from me to you on how to find these...I frequent the section of town with the gorgeous turn of the century homes...you know the kind...they were practically mansions in their day but now have pretty much turned into slums. It makes me sad to drive through that part of town, but since I can't save a whole neighborhood, I may as well save pieces of it, right??

Well, I have learned that if you can find out which houses are being renovated or torn down...you just have to pop yourself into the jobsite one morning with a big box of Krispy Kremes and a smile...then the guys just might leave you the chandeliers sitting by the dumpster rather than throwing them in.

~ smile ~

Krispy Kreme really brings out the love, doesn't it?

This little beauty is going to have a new home in my bathroom.

And I have no idea what I am going to do with the wood pullys I found...but I have always been crazy about industrial pieces so they will find a place somewhere. They were in pile of trash from a garage that was cleaned out.

Oooh...and I am crazy about those metal bins!! I love the holes, because I find all things polka dotted, white and metal to be dreamy. The fact that they are all 3 is amazing!

Oh, and CDs fir perfetly inside! (You will see one poping up in an office reno coming up very soon!)

But here are the two pieces I love probably as much as the cabinet in the first photo.

I have no idea what they are. Old chairs maybe that have the backs cut off? I see marks where it looks like something was attached at one time.

They are large, so if they were chairs they were b-i-g.

I LOVE the metal...zinc maybe?? Zinc-looking anyway. They are going to be awesome in the wooded part of my backyard with cascading container plants on top of them next year.

So there you have it.

I am a  girl that loves to pick through people's garbage.

Ok, I don't really pick through it. I just look for a pile that may have potential, get out of my car and look to see what is on top. Most nights I can come home with 5 or 6 things and have a whole bunch of laughs with my sister while we are doing it.

Keeping beautiful things out of a landfill...just another way I am helping save the world.

I just have to know...am I the only one that does this sort of thing?? Please tell me there are some fellow trash-pickers out there in blogland!