Dumpster Diving

This week was pretty fantastic.
On Thursday I was part of a shoot with Curtis Stone...the Australian Celebrity Chef...fun day and great client.....and the week just got better from there.

Later that night as I was taking the dogs for a walk I spied some antique tin ceiling in a dumpster around the corner from my son's school.  I've been keeping an eye on this dumpster and finally hit the jackpot.  In case you didn't already know I am a little addicted to garbage picking!

I climbed up to have a better look and noticed there was quite a bit of old tin ceiling still attached to the wood strapping.....I quickly walked the dogs to the park and then headed home to get the van and some tools.

I grabbed a claw headed hammer and crowbar....and my teenage son who wanted to come along.

Parking the van beside the dumpster we started pulling out the tin and prying it off the wood strapping.  Then a man came out from the building they are gutting....I asked him if they were throwing the tin out....and if so, could I have it.  He said "sure" and then showed me the rest of the ceiling around the corner!!  I couldn't believe it...the entire ceiling from an old store had been ripped out...complete with the tin crown moulding!!

We got to work and managed to salvage about 25 pieces of 2 foot square tin and some lengths of crown molding too.

My son got right into it and was a huge help....very proud mom moment indeed!

Then he spied some objects in another pile and pulled them out.....

They turned out to be vintage industrial mixer parts!!  So cool!
I am going to wire these into hanging pendant lamps with those Edison bulbs that are so popular right now....sort of like this:

What a score!! Can't believe how lucky we were....when I went back the next day it had all been removed and taken away.  I am so glad I took that walk when I did.

Turns out today I struck it rich again......another walk with the dogs ....on the beach this time.  We had a huge storm yesterday and the waves crashed in about 100 feet up on shore...which makes for fantastic scavenging.   I spied this piece of wood and loved it for the metal attached.

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I'm going to dry this out, clean up the metal and paint the word "BEACH" on it with an arrow...then hang it from the chains on the wall in our kitchen....can't wait!

I'm off to see my guy Ed on Monday to look for some wood for our school's bench project and a coffee table project for my friend....hopefully my luck will continue!

All in all it has been a great week for finding treasure...hope yours has been just as fantastic!