The ultimate in OS furnishing

badgermonkey

A New York man furnishes an apartment only with things he finds on the street:

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/shopping/homedesign/features/12067/index.html

LearningToSave.

oh my god that is amazing!!! somehow dont think that could be done here though.

BWZN93

That is amazing!! How come no-one does that here?? Id love some cool new stuff for free, especially since I like old stuff that I can modernise, and If I mess it up, it doesnt matter. Chairs are particularly great for that one.....

Jo x

crana999

Jo - have a look here http://www.freecycle.org/

to see if there is a Freecycle group near you.

Edinburghlass_2

I can recommend freecycle for sure if you have a busy group in your area. My one was mentioned elsewhere on MSE recently but just last night there was sky boxes, video and a pc all in good working order and snapped up straight away. The past couple of week I have seen electric cooker, gas cooker and even the odd person looking for a bread maker

Austin_Allegro

Americans have a custom of leaving furniture etc out to be collected by the dustman, and it's considered perfectly ok for students etc to take anything they like. It wouldn't happen here with our jobsworth dustmen, and also the wet weather would ruin most things quickly!

Loadsabob

Austin_Allegro wrote:

Americans have a custom of leaving furniture etc out to be collected by the dustman, and it's considered perfectly ok for students etc to take anything they like. It wouldn't happen here with our jobsworth dustmen, and also the wet weather would ruin most things quickly!

Perhaps it's because this is a student town that it happens a lot here. When students move out, all kinds of things get left out in the alleys!! Not usually a great deal worth having, but I've seen working fridges, TVs, stereos, etc before now. Things I already have, usually. But my fabulous heavy wood backed flower shaped mirror was a great find! There are often chairs and tables. I have two old circular wooden coffee tables in my garden, with plants on. I had a few stools that I'd collected, too, but eventually they fell apart. I had a bathroom cabinet for a short while, because I loved the retro look of it, and it scrubbed up well.

Charity shops and car boot sales are good here, for furniture. One night I sketched the coffee table I'd like, but had never seen. Two days later my boyfriend came home with it, from a charty shop!! I have side tables from ols simple stools - I took the plastic seats off and varnished the wood underneath. They were four for £2!

I just love used furniture. It has more of a life, and I just couldn't live with a room that looked as though it had just stepped out of Argos, everything from the same "range" - I like a little diversity in my surroundings, and I like things that you no longer see in the shops.