Christmas Morning for Junk Collectors!

My favorite time of year!

Not only is it the start of garage sale season, it is spring clean up week.

In our community we have a city wide garage sale weekend one each year.

The city wide garage sale is meant to get rid of as much as you can for profit before you start to bring your unwanted items to the curb.

For one week you can drag anything that you don't want and that can't fit into your garbage can to the curb and the city will come and take it away for you - for free!

What I love about this is that a lot of people (including myself) drive around

and find perfectly good, reusable stuff and save it from going to the local landfill.

I'm always amazed by what people throw out.

Last year the highlight of my spring clean up week was a perfectly good industrial sewing machine.

The owner of the sewing machine saw me hauling it away and came out with spare needles.

It works great once I played with the tension a little

and it really helps me sew through all those thick wool sweaters.

Here are a few of the free roadside finds that I've picked up this year.

This old wooden bankers chair - in great condition!

I've always wanted one of these. The little case beside it is a roadside find as well - I love collecting old suitcases.

My boys needed a dresser big enough for the two of them to share and I spied this baby on the side of the road just waiting for me.

I couldn't lift it by myself so I took the drawers and put them in my van.

(I knew nobody else would take a dresser with the drawers missing!)

The little desk has already received new knobs and a new paint job - I'll show you that soon.

I also picked up this solid oak mantle with the intentions of turning it into a headboard for a king size bed. It is the perfect width and height for it. Sadly I don't have the bed yet and I don't have anywhere to store it so it may end up on craigslist we'll see.

My sister and I had a super fun day. She is single again and in the process of decorating her whole house so she really picked up a fabulous haul. Between the two of us we had three full van loads, and a ton of laughs trying to fit this stuff in. In addition to my free finds I spent a total of $28 on a few other bits and pieces. And my sister has got a super good start on her decorating for $120.