Major Urquhart

This month I felt like I got a few bonus garbage days. As I mentioned in my last entry, I found 2 new towns to check out, and one towns large item pick up was temporarily moved to a different week. I also found out a certain towns local thrift store and library throws out a majority of the books it gets donated for its book sales, so I was able to save a few of those as well.

The following finds came from a local spot where I found the Arnold Schwarzenegger muscle booklet and the old lantern. It seems this place only has a pile out every other week or so, I think someone is cleaning out and renovating the place in their spare time. However I think this spot might peter out and stop producing soon because there was more old construction material thrown out this time instead of just household items.

These vintage knitting, crocheting and sewing magazines from the early 70's were in the recycling bin. It was really fun to go through them and check out all the styles that were popular back then. I'll probably put these up for sale cheap to see if anyone wants them, and if not they'll go to the second hand store.

This little case was really heavy, I didn't look to see what was inside, I figured maybe it was tools or something, so I just shoved it in my bag with the rest of the stuff I grabbed to look at later.

Inside...lawn bowling balls!

There were also other various household items that I grabbed, such as, 3 full rain suits (hat, jacket and overall pants) still in the package, a licence plate for my plate collection that I have on my house ( you can see it further down in this post) a full lighter, a few utensils, a nice pottery bowl, a Christmas mug, a little leather key holder with a built in army knife, a matching horse decorated shoe horn and brush, a flash light and a strange mug with a nude woman hugging a horse...

I have no idea what this is all about, it's signed "Rita" on it and underneath as well. Unfortunately, you can see a hairline crack to the left of the horses legs, when I went to wash it out, it split completely in half. Oh well...

These ceramic salt and pepper cats were also rescued before I left this spot.

My bonus large item day turned up a few good things as well...

This pile came from a garbage bag that was sitting on a discarded couch. I peeked into the bag and the first thing I saw was the work light, a bunch of papers, and the velvet jewellery boxes. I grabbed it as it looked like someone did a clean out. The jewellery boxes were unfortunately empty, but I can still use them for my jewellery at home. There was also a Tupperware brand bowl, a map, a cable box and remote, a battery charger, a velvet bag I'll give my son for his marbles, a sunglasses case, some Adidas shoelaces still in the bag, a pen, some kind of earphone jack from JVC, a small stainless steel flask, a quarter, that white rectangle is actually 2 stickers of the Apple logo, and an entire Kodak digital camera set up.

There is a battery charger that uses a standard wall plug, and also an adapter for charging in the car, the set up disk, and the camera itself. Inside the camera is the battery and a 1gb SD card. I downloaded the software and charged up the camera and everything works perfectly. I'm not sure yet if I'll try to sell this, or keep it for the convenience of being able to charge the battery in the car while were on little vacation day trips this summer.

Once I pulled everything out of the bag, there was just a small pile of screws, washers, pins and crumpled papers at the bottom. I left the bag on my porch and went back inside. Later on I had some of my own stuff to throw out, so I figured I'd go throw it into the bag on the porch. Something told me to take one last look in the bag, and there at the bottom I spotted this 1919 large cent. I guess it was hidden in the shadows of the bag and I didn't see it the first time. Good thing I took a second look! It's not valuable or anything, but it's really cool to have and look at. :)

I also picked up a few pieces of furniture. My no furniture rule that I had at the beginning of this whole adventure has totally gone out the window LOL I forgot to post about this head and foot board I found during last months large item day. It was so cute, but I passed it up the first time I went by. However on the way home, I had to pass by again and it was still there. Since I had room in the car, and couldn't bear to think of it going to the dump, I loaded it up. I ended up selling it within a week for $50.

 These chairs I picked up this month are in rough shape where they are upholstered... one backside is missing, and the seat on the other is made of presswood and is cracked, but the frames are very sturdy and in great shape. I'm hoping to come across some cool material to redo them in, and then maybe paint the frames. I have them listed for sale as is in case anyone else wants to tackle re-doing them before me because it might be awhile before I find the right kind of material, and I don't need them taking up space.

I also grabbed this table because I liked the look of it and the fact that it was made of solid wood. It has a few dings and scratches, but I thought I could probably sell it cheap or do something myself with it.

For a few weekends now I have been going to a little thrift store that I discovered in a near by town that's only open for 2 hours every Saturday. They always get a lot of cool antique and vintage donations and they sell them dirt cheap. I found out from one of the volunteers there that people actually arrive an hour in advance and that there's always a line up to get in. I decided I had to get there early the next weekend :) While I was waiting in line in the foyer, I noticed out a window that someone was opening the recycle bins out back and they were pulling out books. Then I saw another person doing it. I decided to check out the bins on my way out, and they were filled with rejected books. I didn't have anything but my one bag to carry them in, but I did manage to save the following:

I also went and checked out the 2 new towns I spoke about earlier. One turned out to be a total dud. I drove around to check it out anyways and didn't see anything but an old mattress. After doing some more checking around, I found out that for their large item days, they only accept furniture, mattresses, appliances, and renovation stuff like old sinks and toilets. They won't take electronics, TV's, or anything else. Since this town is a bit further, I won't be going back again, it's just not worth the gas.

The second town looked promising as there are no rules in this town and you can throw anything out. Since it's still winter, it's still hard to get a feel of what it will be like. I look forward to checking it out again when the warmer weather hits and people do their spring cleaning. I did manage to find a girls purple bike, it had a little white basket and sparkly tassels hanging from the handle bars. The chain had come off and it was a bit rusty, but nothing else seemed to be wrong with it. Since it seemed like a rusty chain was an easy fix, and I didn't have the space to store it right now, I dropped it off at the donation bins at a second hand store on my way home. I also picked up this chair and brought it home, but decided I'll bring it to my next donation drop off as well.

I ended up back at the little thrift store the next weekend and this time came equipped with some extra bags. 2 other people were going through the recycle bins when I got there. One lady was an artist who said she used the pages of old books to paint on. For my husband the old book nut, I managed to pick up an old encyclopedia set from 1874 ( No pics, those were hard to carry let me tell you! I had to go back and make a second trip!) and a few other fun books.

My favourite though is this British Army Staff  Duties in the Field manual from 1949

It apparently belonged to a Major Urquhart. I didn't think a Google search would turn up anything, but to my surprise, there were 3 Major Urquharts of significance in the British Army during this time, one of them, Major Roy Urquhart, was even played by Sean Connery in the 1977 film A bridge Too far. I don't know if I'll be able to find out which Major this manual belonged to, but if it did belong to the more famous Major, it could be a collectible worth something :)

In the meantime I decided to experiment with that table I found above. I decided to sand it, paint it, lightly distress it and then wax it. It turned out looking like this...

Quite a difference huh? I was planning on putting it up for sale, but my husband and 2 older kids out voted me and said they wanted to keep it as they like it better than our old log coffee table. And yes, that is the rug I posted about finding in my last entry :)  

Crazily, my living room is now mostly decorated by garbage and thrift store finds!