Welcome to Trashy Tuesday. You can be as trashy as you want to be here. It was a lovely week. If that word can be used to describe dumpster finds, curbside pickups, and garage sale leftovers! Like how awesomely trashy is this lamp I got for FREE! You cannot take the people who live in this house too seriously if this is the first thing that greets you when we open the door.
I shall name them Mark and Karen. No, too ordinary. How about Marcus and Karenina.
By the way, check out what they are standing on! Sharing Wednesday!
Do you network? Di you know I have a vast network around my town of junque lookers? If you don’t have your own junque entourage, you should really start developing one. I have fabulous friends who text me free things they happen upon junque on sidewalks. Call me with hot tips that their neighbor is moving and throwing out EVERYTHING unless someone picks it up firs
t. How did I develop this network you ask? TELL PEOPLE what you do.
Tell them you love to do nothing more than find free furniture and home decor and give it a new life. People find this FASCINATING. They do! Some people are jealous of my fabulously exciting job. Some people are grossed out. But most people are always interested in learning more. Often they ask if they can come along. Make sure your growing junque entourage all have your number, email, etc. Let them know how much you appreciate these hot tips. It won’t be long before your phone is exploding with leads of desks dumped, chairs abandoned, and tables toppled over on the side of a road.
Speaking of toppled tables. I got a great lead on this FREE Coffee table. It doesn’t look even half as cool as it is and will be, but it is solid, and it is sitting on my new rug, in my living room currently undergoing a makeover. (Can you call it that if it was never really decorated in the first place?) 
And while we are on the subject of tables. I spied this on its side this morning next to a dumpster on one of my rounds. Can you guess what makes this Coffee Table unique? It is missing a leg! I propped one in there for the picture. I will most likely leave it with the mismatched leg. It should be whimsical and silly in it’s next life since it was so unceremoniously dumped! 
Garage sale leftovers! I have a friend who lives in a gated community. Said community only allows one community garage sale per year. It is an event you don’t want to miss. My friend put my name on the list to get in early. I purchased two chairs from her and went back that afternoon to pick them up. She was giving away EVERYTHING that didn’t sell. She is an estate sale hunter and the girl can shop the good stuff! I got a bunch of great frames and vintage pictures. This was my favorite. It will be going up on my wall soon to add to my collection of Vintage Chocolate ads. 
This last piece was not free. But I have been searching high and low for a decently priced dress form. My said estate sale expert friend happened to have one for sale! She was quite charitable with the price. I love my new gal friend. Did you notice, she is even sporting the newest fashion in pins! 
Even with my new trash finds, I am still getting my car (all the way, and shutting the door) in the garage. Good thing I don’t have to park on the side of my house. That area is still a disaster. Some people wish for a maid to come magically clean their home. I wish for a garbage man to come magically clean up this mess! 
I love your blog and you are very talented and creative! But, please, “it’s” is a contraction of “it + is”. “It’s” is not possessive. “I spied this on it’s side this morning . . . ” should be “I spied this on its side this morning . . .” I don’t mean to sound like a frustrated English teacher, but it really detracts from the content.
That “it’s” thing drives me crazy too, but I see it everywhere these days. Guess not too many of us paid attention in English grammar class! Sometimes, though, it’s just typing too fast and, as I’m sure you’re aware, proof-reading one’s own writing is the hardest thing to do 🙂 These days, My brain is dictating far more quickly than my fingers can keep up, and I’ve made my legal as a legal secretary for over 40 years (still going, just like the Energizer Bunny). When I read my blog posts, I see errors all over the place, they make me cringe. Sometimes I even go back and fix them, but mostly I don’t have the time to fuss. Such is life in the 21st century, alas.
And so we all change the language we inherited. Change is inevitable but not enviable when it makes the language hard to understand. And I have no trouble with comprehension here.
btw, if it matters, I find it helps me to remember that the apostrophe is standing in for the omitted ‘ i’ in is. It’s = it is. Then the possessive ‘its’ finds its place right well. Most of the time…LOL
It seems to me that a blogger who blogs daily, writing her story as she goes, and who dumpster dives, repairs and paints and then finds homes for what she creates, deserves a little leeway in the spelling dept.
But some people are like me and sometimes comment because we are as driven to keep the language in order as others are driven to rescue, repair, and re-paint. We all have our passions, but our comments are not enough to spin the globe out of control if we post ’em. Pass on by and let these issues not turn us against each other, okay? Thanks for reading…MJ
No matter how it reads, I love your blog. Keep it coming!
An entourage, hmmm….I don’t know if I could handle having people look for me because I’m already stashed! Great idea, Karen, and love your table minus the leg. I just inherited a gorgeous coffee table with one leg said to be broken, but it’s an easy fix. Score!
Love your blog and Trashy Tuesday is my favorite! I wish I lived in a climate I could store some of my stash outside so it was not taking up my entire living and dining room! No garage either so it gets tricky. Thank you for continuing to make me laugh and inspire me to pursue the vision I see for others trash.
To Susan: Sorry honey but you do sound like a frustrated English teacher. While I feel good grammar is important in most instances, you need to lighten up a little. To let something like that detract from the content (which is fun and informative) is silly. She shares so many talents with us all, we can certainly overlook such an error Heck I did not even notice it but it is not my strong suit either. We all have different strengths and weaknesses after all, life is too short to focus on the negative. Just my two cents! Peace everyone!
That lamp is beyond awesome… looking forward to the table makeovers!
xo Heidi
Oh I see you found a girlfriend for Manny (was that his name? Lol) I need to work on my junque-terage. I do have my son trained though, he is so excited to tell me when he spies something in my neighborhood by the road on trash day! Love to see your posts in my inbox 🙂
As always great finds! I want a vintage dress form – I keep looking for the exact one I want. I have one but not the one I really want!
Should be “love my new gal friend”, and perhaps “avec” a new Redoux pin. No worries though.
Yes, the lamp matches your personality. So what left to allow you to bring home more junque?
I can’t wait to see what you do with the three legged side table!
LOVE all the fun things you share with us! Your grateful attitude and positive way of looking at life is so uplifting. We all make errors when we blog or comment on instagram, etc. spelling included! ha….Just spend your time and worries on your family and sharing with us!! Never understand people who leave comments that are not positive and add to the fun. LIFE IS TOO SHORT AND YOU HAVE IMPORTANT PEOPLE TO TAKE CARE OF….besides sharing with us….Many thanks….
Hola! Where I live (in Greenfield in SE Wisconsin), the municipality has contracted out trash pick-up. We get two free pick-ups a year via that contractor that we can schedule specially for the truck to come and take it off, take it off, take it ALL off our property, heh heh…
Okay, seriously, probably nobody who reads here is old enough to remember that particular Aqua Velva commercial, ahem. Have you inquired at your Department of Public Works or equivalent in your municipality if they have such a service? The cost for a “special” pick-up in my area is $20, and you can pile up as much as you want. Here, it has to be at curbside and smaller items that are not easily corralled need to be in cardboard boxes (no plastic bags). Check out your own DPW, you may be surprised by what they’ll come and pick up for free or a modest charge added to your property taxes at the end of the year. P.S. Sometimes they forget to add the extra charge 🙂 I called my city a few years ago and inquired about having a street tree put on one side of my yard. They were happy to oblige for $190. I said okay. They came early spring last year and planted one (wrong color, wrong spot), and I never got a bill for that little ol’ tree that I tenderly nursed through the drought and extreme temps (often 100 plus degrees, in SE Wisconsin!) of 2012. So, if you haven’t already done so (in which case, my apologies), please check it out.
I have that lamp – maybe they need to be a matched pair so they can all do the waltz together! Great to have friends that work at estate sales too – love the dress form!
Kelly