Trashy Tuesday What You Can Find in a Dumpster 

Happy Trashy Tuesday, even though it is actually Wednesday.  I am returning to the land of the living (I guess if you can call rummaging around in Dumpsters “living” then this is it).

Thank you from the deepest parts of my heart and soul to the many, many sweet words and comments, and donations!  From last week’s post regarding the tragic death of our friend’s son.

In honor of Ben, and last weeks Dumpster connection I shared that Ben and I had, I am doing a SUPER DUMPSTER TOUR today.

I have a whole Dumpster full of treasures to share with you.  Ready for the guided tour of my Dumpster Diving Finds?  Read on because you won’t be disappointed by my trash.

Since Christmas is right around the corner….Right??  Well actually Halloween is coming up, but hey, it’s never too early to start planning for the holidays.  They will be here before you know it.  Good thing the person who threw out a half a Dumpster Full of Christmas Decor didn’t look at the calendar. Otherwise I am positive they would have held onto all this until January.

The trunk of my minivan was stuffed to the gills with Christmas.  I even pulled all the ribbons off the plastic oversized yard candy canes.  Hey, there were still good!  I also scored several of those very expensive oversized outdoor glass balls.  The kind I always admire but never buy because they are out of my budget (next to nothing or free)

Do you need some artwork?  Well this isn’t bad, the frame is a little dinged up but can easily be upgraded with some DIY Paint.

Have you tried Dumpster Diving?  Want to know how to get started?  Check out my three part series “The Complete Guide To Dumpster Diving”.  It will open new doors for you.  I have several old doors still, solid wood, that I rescued from an old church in my town.  You can read about how cool that whole event was HERE.  It was Divine Intervention……

I do hope to finally make a nice photo back drop with the doors, and now I have enough.  Should I move it up the chain of priorities???  So much Junk to makeover, so little time.

And, if you saw my IG feed a couple of weeks ago, then you know I have some MAD Dumpster Diving Skills.  I actually got this entire dresser out of a dumpster that was about 8 feet tall.  Don’t ask me how I did it, I always say, where there is a will, there is a way.  

Sadly, once I got it out, I went digging for the drawers and they were seriously buried under things that weighed more than I could move.  And I can move a lot!  I decided to leave it for someone else.  As of this morning, it was still there where I left it.  Maybe it is waiting for me and I thinks I abandoned it after it came so close to being rescued!  

I did go home with that cute nightstand though.  One of the legs was missing and no where to be found.  I just pulled one of the legs out that went to the head board (that was MIA) and will chop off one of the Finials to match the other legs.

Here’s that Night Stand up close and personal.  It needs help, but love the shape and the lines.

Mid Century Modern anyone?  I am IN LOVE with this chair.  I think I will just clean up the wood finish and put a new seat on it.  It is almost perfect and I can’t understand how it got tossed in the first place.  Someone didn’t know what a treasure they had.  If you want to see more Mid Century Modern I rescued, that was literally worth several thousand dollars, then check out that post HERE.

I don’t usually care to see what I look like when I Dumpster Diving.  Trust me, it isn’t pretty.  But I couldn’t resist this perfectly intact wall mirror.  Just a little DIY Paint and good as new, in fact better.  Because that white Melamine isn’t doing anything to make anyone look better.

Isn’t this bench the cutest?!!  I cannot take credit for finding it.  It found me!  A sweet friend gave it to me when I was at her house for a party.  She be like, “i love this bench, but my husband wants it gone”, I be like, “Let me take it off your hands and we will both end up happy”.

I love happy endings.  Especially when they involve free furniture.

And Holy Cow.  How adorable is this Dresser???  I found it IN THE DUMPSTER.  Finding all the drawers was like a treasure hunt.  They were scattered about in other dumpsters.  But find them I did, and they were all perfectly FINE.  Now why would someone go and do such a mean thing like that to this adorable, HARD WOOD dresser.  Separating a perfectly good dresser from its perfectly good drawers is cruel and unusual treatment.

And to finish up this awesome round up is another Dresser.  This one is not perfectly fine, but almost fine.  The drawers all need a little work, and I have to rebuild a corner on one of them.  This time, I didn’t have to look very far to reunite dresser with drawers.  Phew.

That was enough Junk to last me for a while.  I am pretty much at my maximum capacity.  That point where I can still park my minivan in my garage, and still open doors on all sides and not have to shimmy between furniture.  When I reach that point, I have to offer up some things back to the junk community.  If you remember, I let a ton of stuff go about a month ago.  Don’t be afraid to let things go.  There will always be enough Dumpsters full of amazing things to replenish a Junkers need to Junk.

Hope you have a totally Trashy Week and discover what you can find in a Dumpster!