Dumpster Diving and Other Classy Moves

One of my favorite things about Oak Park are the alleys. Correction, the stuff people leave in the alleys.

When we first moved here I was a bit weary of all the dumpster diving that I heard went on. Gross right? But then I started walking around, saw the AMAZING things that people threw away, and quickly changed my mind.

Since Oak Park charges for removal of any extraneous stuff that won't fit in your cans a lot of people just leave things out in the alleys in the hopes that someone will come pick it up, sparing them the money it would take to get it removed. I did this a while back when I cleaned out our garage. A lawn mower, vacuum cleaner and sled/saucer thingy were promptly taken off of our hands by fellow dumpster divers. I've learned to love this system.

Even with all the walking and perusing of trash that I've done I had yet to take anything home. I'm a big browser but comitting to lugging something home is a whole different ball game.

It all started a few months back when our amazing neighbors rescued a wooden upholstered childrens rocking chair for Ainsley. They washed the slipcover and delivered it to our back door "I can't believe someone was just going to throw this away! It's in perfect condition!" Ainsley was elated to have her own rocking chair. It especially came in handy when Louise was born and we could rock our babies in tandem. It now sits in her bedroom and every night without fail we hear the rhythmic thump thump of her rocking one of her dollies to sleep.

The treasure hunt continued on a brief post dinner lets get all the jitters out walk with Ainsley when we stumbled across a true gem. A Step 2 Snuggle Bug car just begging to have life breathed back into it. We kept walking home without it as I was unsure how to get it home with Ainsley in tow (it needed a major spray down before I'd let her ride it). I thought about the car all night and by the next morning was near panicked that it would be gone. Thankfully it wasn't and a quick sojourn with the girls and my good friend Nadine resulted in the addition of the Snuggle Bug to our backyard mayhem of toys. Ainsley LOVES it!

On that same day I noticed that out back alley neighbors had placed a table top easel out by their garbage. I debated snatching it, it too needed a good cleaning and upon further inspection one of the legs is a bit broken, but it stands well and who can beat a free chalkboard easel? Ainsley got right to work making "a blue rectangle mama" followed by "a yellow circle, just for fun".

::the loot::

Being a bargain shopper by nature finding all this free stuff is almost TOO exciting. It makes it hard to ever pay full price for anything because I KNOW someone somewhere is just dying to give it away for free, or at least in Oak Park they are!