Do you Dumpster dive or salvage in your neighborhood?

[grasswire]

In my town, people put free things out on the parking strip. If it's there, it's fair game.

In some neighborhoods where there are apartment buildings, anything by the Dumpster is fair game.

Is there anything like that unwritten rule in your town?

And I've been watching for architectural salvage, because many homes in my area were built in 1900-1915 and are being remodeled for resale with stuff coming out for freebies.

Last year I found a fabulous jelly cabinet. I was out walking with a teenager. I sent him home for his skateboard, and we hoisted the cabinet on the board and rolled it home. Ha! The paint on the cabinet is just yummy. I took it to my retail antique mall space for display. I often ask workers who are rehabbing a house if there are any old cupboards they are getting rid of.

Last week a block away, workers tried to give me a wooden mantelpiece. I just didn't want to try to get it home, so I didn't take it. It had not been painted, and was interesting in design. Sort of art deco looking, although the house was probably 1920. I should have taken it. Also available on the curb there were two French Provincial night tables, painted kitchen cabinets with glass doors, and some ceiling lights.

Maybe I ought to get a pickup. I do love jelly cabinets.

So share your tales of free finds!

[demgrrrll]

1. Woo Hoo! right here. I was at an family run estate sale and jumped in

the dumpster and found a perfectly good piece of Rookwood. I like "big trash days" I have pulled rugs, furniture, you name it out of the trash. Nothing is better than free. People have found paintings, linens vintage clothes etc in the trash at estate sales. I think if it is in the dumpster it is fair game.

[Vinca]

2. Just yesterday I was driving along a street in town and saw a pile of stuff

with a "free" sign. I stopped and pulled out a little table I can throw a coat of paint on and resell. We have a "recycling" shed at our local waste facility (aka "the dump") and I've gotten all kinds of good stuff there. Today I dragged home a Buddha statue and a Kuan Yin statue. My very best dumpster diving-type find was a half dozen signed pictures by a nature photographer who is apparently well known, although I hadn't heard of him. I found his web site and the prices start at $325 for open edition photos - couldn't seem to find the price on the limited edition ones like I found. In any case, I liked them so much I had 4 professionally framed to put on the walls of the sun porch.http://www.timfitzharris.com/

[grasswire]

5. wow, those are GORGEOUS

I wonder how much business he does. I'm going to show those to my nephew, who is just taking high school photography. Heh. Inspiration!

[Vinca]

8. With the photos I found a whole bunch of old calenders that

covered many years. It appears he's done quite a bit of photography for National Geographic. Good luck to your nephew! Back in the stone age they didn't give photography classes so you can tell him I'm jealous.

[Richard Steele]

3. Yup. "Garbage night" is my once-a-week "long walk through the neighborhood" night.

It's just AMAZING what people throw away.

Back when I lived in Baltimore, I moved in with little more
than a hide-a-bed sofa, my TV and my clothes.
Within 18 months, I had FILLED my 2-bedroom apt with chairs,
cabinets and tables that I found on the street within
"heavy-object-carrying distance" of my place.

Here in Durham, the pickings aren't quite so rich, but
they're still here. We have a bookshelf and an "uninterruptable
computer power supply" that I've found. And I rummage through
the junk pile at the music shop around the corner to salvage
odd bits of metal for my art projects.

I guess I come by the habit honestly- back when I was a little
feller, Grandpa Steele bought a garbage truck and ran a route
for a few years. And I remember when he told me that there were
a lot of weeks where he made more $$$ from salvaging stuff off
of that route than he did from the garbage-hauling.

I guess that made a big impression on me.

[grasswire]

4. what kind of art projects do you do with metal?

Maybe we should start a thread for those who turn castoffs or "stuff" into art.

[Richard Steele]

6. Well, I have to confess that I haven't actually FINISHED any projects with that stuff yet.

I've got a few empty amplifier cases from that pile that
I've stacked up and use as shelving, and a pair of old
Tektronix oscilloscopes that I'm turning into a coffee table.
(the base is finished and primed, but I haven't had JUUST
the right idea for the top yet)

Mostly, I've got a growing pile of large speaker frames,
and aluminum "heat sinks" like these:



I don't know just what I'll do with them, but they're so
cool-looking that I'm sure I'll find a project for them
eventually!

[grasswire]

7. I have half a basement of stuff that is meant for projects...

....eventually. I have a problem actually committing something to a permanent state. Cutting and gluing antique paper items? I love the idea, but hate the defacing of the original.

[zabet]

9. At least your salvaged items are relatively small.

I tend to salvage from demolitions. The best item was an original
corner cabinet from a house built in 1880 - free to haul off!!! Took
it home - washed it - carried it to the auction house and got 573 bucks
for it!!!
At the current moment my salvage items on my back porch - tarped up until
I do something with them are: One 1949 model Chambers gas stove with the
chrome top and griddle - yes it works. A 1949 kelvinator refrigerator - works. A
corner cabinet that matches the one I sold recently (this one is for my house),
a hoosier cabinet, an 8 foot high mirrored amoire - huge, dark massive - needs
a little cleaning up.
It is a good thing we have a large covered back porch on this old house!!
Speaking of the house - it was built in 1931 and we purchased it and moved
it to our farm. That is probably the 'biggest' antique we have purchased.

[B3Nut]

10. "Hippie Christmas" is frowned upon in Madison...

...but that didn't stop me from rescuing a 1967 Hammond M-102 spinet organ from the curb. I wasn't about to let a classic tonewheel organ become mangled in the crusher and dumped in the landfill.

I nab stereo equipment from the curb when I run across something interesting, and have been known to pinch tubes from tube equipment left on the curb.

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[grasswire]

11. what do you mean "tonewheel"?

I once gave away a perfectly good Baldwin electric organ circa 1970, and have regretted it. I donated it to a community theater, at least.

[B3Nut]

13. tonewheels are the sound-generating elements

of Hammond organs circa 1935-1974. A synchronous motor drives an array of steel discs with varying numbers of bumps around their edges past a magnetic pickup. Most models had 91 of these discs, some 86 or so and some late models had 96. The tones generated are keyed by multiple contacts under each key, then mixed with sliding volume controls known as drawbars. Changing the proportion of fundamental pitch and overtones with these drawbars allows a multitude of sounds to be produced.

The legendary B-3 and C-3 are tone-wheel organs.

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[Neecy]

12. check craigslist for your city....

They have a 'free' category and it's surprising what people give away due to space limitations/moving/construction.

[hobbit709]

14. My neighborhood is basically furnished in "Early Goodwill"

so by the time it gets tossed around here it really is junk.

[paulk]

15. all the time!

Pickings aren't as good here in Denver as they were when I lived in Boulder. During the semester changeovers, a lot of students don't return and all their stuff gets thrown in dumpsters. I would salvage things, mostly clothes, and then sell it at flea markets in Denver. That was quite a few years ago now - maybe the students up there are more frugal these days? Some of the most amazing things would show up in the trash - brand new clothes with the tags still in the pockets. Working televisons, radios, etc. There was a time in my life when at least half of the clothes I wore (and I'm not exaggerating) came out of a dumpster.