Last weekend, when we got back from Chicago to our place out in Springs we immediately tucked into some long awaited spring cleaning.
We had rented a 20 yard dumpster in order to clean out our mother's basement, our barn, the old Ice House and two plywood decks we'd built five years ago that had finally rotted. To clean up years of clutter only took about 6 hours. When we first looked at the dumpster, we were sure we could never fill it. We did. Click below and listen for the great "aaah" sounds.
Hopefully the decluttering won't be accompanied by renewed consumption.
oh god, you can take the girl out of scavenging, but you can't take the scavenging out of the girl...
in the first photo of the mostly empty dumpster, i saw that weathered farmhouse chair with the completely rotted out cane seat and my first thought was, "what a lovely chair! i can't believe they're getting rid of it!"
Thompson, I'm asking this because I'm genuinely curious: are you at all familiar with this site?
It's not a shop-shop-shop site. It's about making mindful choices regarding what you choose to consume and why. If you look at past posts (the "Nine Month Cure," or the Apartment Therapy Cure, for example) there's a real emphasis on buying only what will be loved and used.
This is the second comment of yours I've seen where you seem to imply that home improvement is an exercise in mindless consumption. That attitude you're deploring is actually antithetical to the mission of this site, and its editorial bent.
***
Back to the topic: that's an impressive job! I bet y'all were sore afterward.
Lisa in Almeda,
I saw nothing wrong in Thompson's comment. I believe it's even in the book to beware of refilling the now empty spaces. Remember, regardless of what they have said before on this site, you have no idea what he/she meant with this particular statement.
I can't believe they are getting rid of that chair either. Please, give it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill -- there are plenty of non-modern furniture fans who would gladly tighten the joints and put a new seat on that chair.
Good for you for decluttering, but bad to you for being wasteful.
Lisa from VA --
I know I don't have any idea. This is why I asked.
Me, charities are very particular about the furniture they take, at least in these parts. Goodwill and Salvation Army here have turned down numerous friends because they are not donating new merchandise. No lie. In some cases, they have ended up putting nice three-year-old sofas on the sidewalk in the hope that someone will take it.
Can I put out a word for freecycle.org? A lot of cities have them, and you can get rid of almost anything in days if not minutes. I kid you not-- when we ripped out the wall-to-wall carpeting in our new place we were able to get rid of all of it, plus the under foam stuff (I had to bar the partner from hanging around and convincing people they didn't want the foam). The people that came to get the carpet were very grateful for it, and I was happy it wasn't going into a landfill. It was win-win for everyone (it's even international).
http://www.freecycle.org/
regards,
trillium
Lisa from VA,
I do see the reason Lisa from A asked though.
If Thompson had any idea of what Maxwell and Sarah stand for then his question would be redundant.
So, because obviously Thompson does not have any idea, I direct him to this set of threads:
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/book
I'm all for reuse/recycle of usable materials. To me this looks like a pile of rotting, possibly infested wood. I don't think we can really make assumptions about the chair either. It's really ok to just throw things out sometimes.
I must admit my first thought was also "wow I could really do things with that chair"