Lisa, Laura, and I currently reside in the city in which I grew up. We have lived here about 6 month and love it! Every spring the city coordinates a fantastic event called "city wide clean up". Each weekend from mid -April through May, residents put all their unwanted belongings out on the curb, quadrant by quadrant. Things begin appearing Thursday evening and pickup occurs Saturday. Its a thrifters DREAM. Free stuff everywhere. Some of it is absolute crap - broken appliances, rusty furniture, crappy rugs, broken wood pallets, etc. But there are those diamond in the rough that can be found no where else and at no other time. FOR FREE.
On Wednesday, Laura and I took a stroll around our neighborhood - about a 6 block square. We left some fun things for other scrappers to find, but we managed to come back with some excellent finds.
Items included -
A working patio umbrella (the really nice, but well loved kind)
A patio chair
A patio rug
3 medium planters
A steel pole (this is WAY cool because of its importance in a later project)
And a wheel (also for a later project)
This will probably way more impressive when I post before and after picts of our patio after it all comes together, but for now - go find a recycling or re-using center that will let you paw around in their stuff. For those in the MPLS/ Twin Cities area check out the following places:
http://www.greeninstitute.org/programs/reuse-deconstruction.htm - The ReUse Center
http://www.tchabitat.org/restore - Re-Store for building materials and paint etc.
http://groups.freecycle.org/freecycleMpls/posts/all
http://www.twincitiesfreemarket.org/
*Please note that we can't vouch for any of the information listed on the websites above - so use your discretion.
We would LOVE to see what you come up with, so post your comments and re-using stories here!
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