Christmas in June

The big July 1st moving day is coming up for the province of Quebec, so a town about 10 minutes away, where there are a lot of renters, decided to add one more "large object" trash day to their schedule.

Usually they have it on the 1st Friday of the month, but for June they added another one on the last Friday as well. I guess they want to make sure they get all the stuff from the people that were going to move out this weekend, and then get the stuff leftover after people leave on Tuesday.

This town uses one of those garbage trucks with an robotic arm that takes your bin and empties it out  in the top of the truck. This means they don't take anything that is not in the bin as there are no garbage men to grab bags. Everything is automated.

I never go there unless it is large object day and it always pays off for me. The town is so horribly wasteful. There are 2 large donation bins right on the main road, and 2 more right in the grocery store parking lot. I mean if I can haul this stuff back home to my house, how come they can't take it to a bin a few minutes away? Do they never drive on the main road or go to the grocery store? Heck, you can even leave your things on the church steps and it will go to their second hand store in the basement. Tsk tsk.

Anyways, here you can see a few things I managed to save from the landfill on Thursday night...

The first thing I grabbed was this mirror. I spotted the frame under a pile of plywood. Unfortunately when I lifted the plywood off, I saw that the mirror was broken and the frame was cracked. I'll take out the mirror, repair the frame, paint it white and sell it. There are tonnes of ideas for old mirror frames on Pinterest.

 Next up were 2 piles almost right next to each other on the same street. One was throwing out mostly crappy furniture, but I did manage to take their Christmas tree which was neatly boxed up. I opened it up at home and set it up on my porch to make sure it was in good shape and to see how tall it was. It seems to be a 6 footer.

There were still some lights wrapped up in the tree as well. Here is my cat Gracie, who refused to move when I plugged the lights in to test them. Yup, everything works.

On to the pile next door where there was coincidentally...another Christmas tree! This time it was just a little mini one, but it was still in the original box unopened. The box was a little wet from being on the groud, so I took the tree out and also put it on my porch to air it out. I added a little sparkly garland I had laying around just for kicks.

This pile also had a box on the ground filled with boys clothes. I threw them all in my washer so they'd be ready for the second hand store. Coincidentally, they were all my son's size, but he has enough clothes. I only kept a pair of grey jogging pants because my kids can blow the knees out of a pair of pants in about 2 seconds flat it seems. In with the box were 2 soapbox derby medals as well.

 

The next stop was one that had produced for me before, and sure enough, there sat a pair of hockey skate style roller blades, and an expandable fold up dolly. The dolly was a little stiff, but a few sprays of Jig a Loo fixed that right up. My husband was thrilled with that find as he's wanted a dolly for awhile, and the skates will go to the second hand store.

 

The next score made me yell "Sweeeet! Check out this awesome vintage play desk just sitting there! I used to play on one of those as a kid! I usually don't take curb pictures, but this time I quickly got out my phone to document it.

It was a bit dusty, but it cleaned up very well. It's in excellent condition for it's age. Since I played on one of these as a kid, my guesstimate is that it is from the late 60's- early 70's. This one is definitely one of my favourite finds. 

 Another spot had me find this funky little round table. It's only 9.5" tall and 21.5" wide. Being pretty short, I'm not sure it was used as an end table, but I'm not sure what else it could be used for. The underside shows that it is made of solid wood and has some good sturdy legs and fixtures on it. Not some crappy modern day piece off furniture! On it is a nice candle holder that was also curbed at the next spot I hit.

Along with the candle holder, at the next stop was also this dress still zipped up in the garment bag laying right on top of the garbage pile. There were other things in the pile as well, but it looks like carelessness had broken them. There were half empty cleaning products as well, but I don't take those kinds of things. The dress is really light and has a great flowy material. It kind of reminds me of a dress in the movie Dirty Dancing. I don't like the sleeves, but I'm sure someone with sewing experience could turn this into something really lovely.