Day 729 Dumpster Diving

 A perfect little room makeover, why didn't I take a before picture? This one room may be done but there's a whole lotta house still left to finish. I began the daunting task of basement clean out, ugh. Icky things that once were placed into bins or onto shelves as if they'd be needed someday. Bridie had begun cleaning while I was at work, although helpful in intention, she has a different idea of trash. I peaked into the dumpster, happy to see the job was underway, only to see my bag of popcorn, brand new packages of napkins and a half dozen brand new, unopened bottles of wine thrown in, what the heck?? I didn't try to salvage the popcorn but admit I did a bit of dumpster diving to retrieve the bottles of wine. I guess it's true, one mans trash is another mans treasure! While in the dumpster I noticed a coach purse, peaked in and salvaged the money that was being thrown away! I picked out a couple brand new beach towels and threw them into the wash but otherwise, we were off to a good start. I continued to go through items and determine if they would be tossed, donated or brought home as treasures, clearly with a more discriminating eye than my step daughter. The cleaning is somewhat cathartic as well as exhausting and seeing the transformation, rewarding.  The clean crisp look of the vinyl flooring is impressive, much nicer than I ever anticipated and worth the effort. I'll be packing up more glassware for goodwill, dozens of bins and boxes to donate. Most glassware is a dime a dozen and mugs seem to multiply inside the cabinets. How on earth does one household end up with dozens of mugs when the average person only uses one a day? Sure, they are cool, trending sayings, pretty colors but enough already with all the random mugs (my fabulous orange Kate Spade mug aside of course). Fortunately, I can almost see the end in sight....almost. I've asked Tim to recruit another man to help move some of the larger furniture, my shoulders aren't built for all this manual labor! You'd think with Tim having five brothers we'd have an abundance of help, but most of them have bad hips, bad knees or bad attitudes. Tim seems to hate asking anyone (except me) for help so, I may need to call on the one or two of his siblings that still have working joints for help. It's ugly work, so why not share it with loved ones?? Once all this work is complete we will all sit down and relax with a nice glass of wine....fresh from the dumpster.