sympathy for discarded furniture
 

When my wife sees furniture that has been put out to the curb, she feels sorry for it. We were discussing why that is, and decided it's because the furniture can still serve its purpose, but somebody rejected it because they don't like the way it looks anymore, or they feel it isn't good enough for them anymore. It isn't the furniture's fault, though. She told me she used to adopt abandoned furniture, like stray animals.

Here in the UK, that's called fly-tipping....


However, the sally army are always willing to take old/out of fashion/whatever stuff.

Do give your local battalion a ring before you dump it.

Make sure it's deloused before taking it inside. You don't know that it was fashion that caused it to be discarded in the first place.

Some furniture turns out to be rude once you get it in the house. My grandmother had a racist armoire once.

Please allow me to introduce myself
Im a divan of wealth and taste
Ive been around for a long, long year
restored many a mans soul and faith
And I was round when jesus christ
Was in a drowsy place
Made damn sure that pilate
Washed his hands not to soil my face
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But whats puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

whoo whoo etc.

UT set me up for that one. We've actually been on both ends of the furniture spectrum. Never had any lice, did have a goldbricking chair once...

I had a La-Z-Boy recliner for awhile. Never could get it to do anything. It just sat around the house.

You know, they should have a charity orginization that collects old furniture that's damaged but still usable! People would be grateful to get it: Poor families, people just starting out, college students...

We got rid of our couch not long ago- it started biting people that sat on it (busted spring).

There are charity organisations that do - often run by local churches. When I was trying to sort out my debt I was helped by a Christian charity that did that kind of thing. Their congregation wouldn't consider taking something to the tip before making sure no-one else wanted it. My slightly chipped unfashionable brown gas cooker is effectively from Jesus.

Freecycle does a nice job on this stuff.

I don't know if I feel sorry for it but it's certainly wasteful. That said I won't touch it for don't know why it was discarded factor.

And I got stuck with his wife, Lazy Susan. :)

I just got back from Toronto where everyone leaves their discarded furniture and appliances on the curb in the hopes that these guys will pick it up, fix it up then drop it back off.

I saw the show when they made that bbq in the pic on their site. That thing started out as an old rusted out oven they picked up off the curb. After they turned into a 4x4 offroad barbeque, they dropped it back off, rang the doorbell and split. The owner, who had left the stove for dead, was very pleased.

Here's a handy tip for the hobby minded. All the dressers at the curb have drawers. The drawers, especially in cheaper furniture, have backs and sometimes sides, made of thin solid wood and bottoms of thin plywood.

Thin wood is great for craft projects where a regular board is too clunky.
A friend used to make doll houses with this mini-lumber, and clued me in.
Many more people have saws to cut the wood to size than have thickness planers or the skill/patience to hand plane it.

Also "crisper" drawers from refrigerators are good for the garage or cellar.

Oh, and electrical cords from appliances.

I'll stop now.:blush:

Aren't we glad now that Flint stayed at The Cellar? :rolleyes:

"We" are happy to have almost anyone stay in the Cellar, even slinkies.

No, I'm not calling Flint a slinky....or anyone else for that matter, just saying there's room for every point of view, and any topic. :hide:

I dug a VCR out of the neighbors trash a few weeks ago. Opened it up and started taking electrical components out of it for fun. Plus, you never know when you will need something like a little motor. I think I even posted a picture in the close-ups thread of one of the motors I got.

Anyway, just this last weekend, I found a use for the playback head drum. For any who have seen one before, they are shiny cylindrical things that spin with almost no resistance. High quality ball bearings in there. My wife asked me to make one of those spinning prize wheels like they have on Wheel Of Fortune for her pre-school. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. I was thinking about using a bicycle wheel, or maybe just a bolt as an axle. Well, I remembered the VCR playback head. That thing worked perfectly. I did a quick test, and the board I bolted it to keeps spinning for about five minutes! This game prize wheel is going to rock.

If it really is five minutes, you may have problems with the attention span of preschoolers. :)

Yeah. I'm going to put a clicker on it. That will slow it down and make a fun noise too.

Exactly. The low resistance of the wheel itself means that the spin time can be fine tuned based on the variable of how much resistance is offered by the "clicker" mechanism (and, of course, the force provided by the wheel pusher).

I knew there was a reason I saved that box of VCR parts... Nice job finding a use for yours!