Selfsufficientish.com

I found these...

wow !!!

We had Hay-on-Fire here on Hallowe'en. Over five thousand people turned up, many of them in costume, and many of them carrying their own lanterns. The morning after (and it was one of the most stunningly good firework displays I've ever seen) I found a candle lantern abandoned on the way to work. It's now sitting by my bed - I've wanted one for ages and never got round to buying one.

Had to revive this thread. The good thing about the area we live in is people leave their unwanted stuff out on the street.

Anyhoo, kind of worn but perfectly comfortable leather style office chair for free. Left outside our house. Score!!

Although, I wanted it to go with my writing desk upstairs... Peter has discovered how comfortable it is for gaming.

I am always bringing home other peoples unwanted items. Unfortunately all that stuff tends to fill our little house to the rafters.

A few weeks ago we finally decided that we needed to have a good clear out. My husband wanted to take everything down to the dump but I persuaded him to put it all on our front lawn with a notice to any passerbys to help themselves.

My son thought it was all deeply embarassing but by midday almost everything had gone and we had chatted to some neighbours who we hadn't met before. The scrap man arrived with his van and cleared the last of the junk away and we saved a trip to the tip and adding more stuff for landfill.

I am sure we will soon be refilling our home with other peoples leftovers but until everyone stops buying too much stuff and throwing it away we will just have to take it home with us because it is sure to come in handy for a little job somewhere!

when i met my husband in greece he had furnished his flat with stuff found out on the street.
he was sleeping on this old mattress on the floor that he found outside a hotel! it was just a nice as it sounds!
also he didnt have any bed sheets he was just sleeping in a sleeping bag.
and he couldnt cook ( still cant ) and was living off pastry's and suvlaki.
i soon sorted him out though
but he's always trying to make things himself out of crap he finds laying around. but he doent make it all nice like that guy on the TV. when hes finished it just looks like a load of crap stuck together!
the latest thing he made was a 'book shelf' and i use the term loosely! it consisted on a bit of plasterboard as the shelf held up by the books, and it bends in the middle and is on the verge of collapse when you try to take a books out!
hes really not good at the design bit of things, hes got terrible taste, or he just doesnt care really, all he cares about is doing things as cheaply as possible, for free if he can
but he has been building our house and him and his dad have just finished making the roof by themselves as the 1 builder we employ to show them when to do hardly ever turns up. he has made the roof out of proper beams and tiles that he bought though, for a change, and its very well done and im proud of him for building our house for our family
oh and he made the stairs out of old wood in the shed left over from making the house the last time. cut to size and sanded it all and it looks fantastic! so he can do it properly when he tries.

As I mentioned in my introduction my user name stems from my affinity with skips or rather their contents a trait I inherited from my father. He was a furnace controller for the local council and came home most nights with a car full of goodies that had been dumped. It never ceased to amaze me the sort of things people threw away and still do of course. We had a house full of vacuums, bikes and lawnmowers along with really surprising things such as antiques and even a case of unopened spirits on one occasion. As a kid I even had a couple of practice (i.e. not live) anti tanks rockets and hand grenade casings that had ended up there. Father and his workmates had also collected a huge stack of magazines , you know the ones which have those poor women who can't afford clothes in them , although these didn't come home for some reason
My own findings have been numerous, I'm loathed to throw away any hardwoods and most other woods for that matter and so as I'm a carpenter I was always bringing something home.
My most recent finds were from two skips fairly close to me. In one was three lenghts of skirting board as long as the skip and also a working "Henry " vacuum. A large piece of carpet had lodged in the pipe and I can only presume it was thrown away because it wasn't picking up until I cleared it of course

Last night we found outside our council flats a really nice solid oak table which with the flaps up will seat 8, with a clean well worth £800 in an antique shop, but we love it and will keep it.

A cat - or rather he found us. Better than a mousetrap - the other thing we found was half a mouse under the chair in the living room.

A mess in my garden from the builders working upstairs - gggrrrrrrrrr!

a 4 selve pine rack
perfect for drying my papper bricks on
all i had to do was screw it together
was a load of metal poles they will come in handy in the garden

Ikea Poang chair, we're wanted one for ages and jim's dad's friend was getting rid of one. jim asked if we could have it just before he put it in his car boot to go to the tip.
it's a bit scrotty looking on the cushion even after a wash, but for now it's covered with a large piece of brown fun fur.