The joys of keeping your eyes open!

Last Sunday, as I was running around town looking for plywood, I noticed that an infamous local junk shop that hadn't been open for several years had a roll-away dumpster parked in front of it. Later on in the week, I noticed a big hand lettered sign that said "free antiques", so I stopped in for a look. I wish I had had my camera along- the pile of stuff was unbelievable! None of it was really worth picking up, unless you just needed some old dishes- but the shelves were all made out of some pretty decent wood! I made up my mind right then to bring my trailer to town the next day.
Friday, I finished up at work as quickly as possible, and ran straight over to this place. The cleanup crew had been working at an unbelievable rate over the last 24 hours- there was nothing left but dust and some of the shelves! This was okay with me- saved me lots of work! The shelves were free for the taking- all I had to do was break them down, and load my trailer.
I took a number of tools, including a cordless drill and handsaw, but all I really needed was a couple of hammers- everything was simply nailed together!
I got two shelves like this one, which is a full eight feet long- the shelves were 3/4" ply, the backing 1/4" ply, and the kicker board was a nice piece of old growth pine!


Two shelves like this, again a full eight feet long. I just tossed the "shaped" supports. Got that big box on the right, too, and the nice pine boards laying on top.

This doesn't look like much, but it was formerly a shelf unit as tall as me, and eight feet wide- made entirely of old pine! This item was the main thing I had wanted- they had just collapsed it when I got there, getting read to throw it in a dumpster- what a waste that would have been! I'll end up making all kinds of nice items out of this!

Here's my trailer with the full load- it was heavy, so much so, that I had to be careful driving it home. I could really feel the weight affecting how my truck manuevered. I've got lots of nails to pull ( couldn't take the time yesterday), but that's okay. This will take care of a lot of needed shelves, plus the new workbench I am wanting to build in my shop, plus some stuff to sell! All in all, a very satisfying day of real recycling!