Sometimes It's Free

But that doesn't mean it isn't a lot of work.

Chairs and chairs and chairs today,
along with a nice table and other oddments.

A friend bought some property with abandoned buildings on it--three or four storage buildings and an old mobile home. They want to clear the property but the buildings are full of stuff. We initially looked at it in the winter to see if there was anything of value and there wasn't much. What there was would require a lot of work to get out because everything had been put in the buildings willy-nilly, there were probably rodents and who-knows-what living in them, and there was plenty that was just plain trash.

A few weeks ago our friend saw us in town and told us to just get whatever we wanted out of the buildings because they were going to get rid of it all soon. We finally had time this week to get into it, and I mean into it. Gloves, boots, pitchfork, rake, shovel, face masks. Thankfully we saw no critters of the live variety in the buildings, just signs of mice. We've hauled two loads now and need to go back for two more, probably.

This was inside the "good"
building, after we'd been working
for a while already.

This isn't prime antiques but we've found some good mid-century wood furniture that can be fixed up to be pretty nice. And lots of lots of framed art and picture frames. Chairs, stools, and some glassware made the truck fill fast. In one building, we simply looked from the door, took the few things we could see that were good, and left the rest because it was just too difficult--bags and bags and bags of clothes that had got wet when the roof leaked, and some kind of bees in there.

Larry has had a lot of fun playing with various toys
in these buildings. He enjoys rooting around in the
boxes and comes up with the oddest things.

The others were not as bad but required moving a lot of things aside and/or outside.I did not want to leave it worse than when we came, even if it meant more work. We were hot and dirty by the time we finished cleaning up the mess we'd made, and I was in the shower the minute we got home.

Some of yesterday's load; I didn't get a photo until
after Larry started unloading.

Right now my sweet man is unloading and figuring where to store this windfall. Soon he'll be bringing in the glass for me to wash and then it's my turn to figure where to store it until we can get it into a booth. One thing is certain, I'm getting a good workout this week. But it will be worth it in the end, right? I keep telling myself that, anyway!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.