If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know I’m much too frugal to buy a brand new real wood dresser. I did some checking at Amazon and Overstock.com and found that real wood dressers are selling in the $500 to $1000 range. This gorgeous dresser was sitting in one of Mr. A’s customer’s yard, on its way into a dumpster! Mr. A asked his customer if it was going to be thrown away and the guy gave it to him. Score!
The two mirrors you see behind the dresser were also rescued from being tossed in the dump. It is just amazing sometimes the things that people throw away in lieu of having something “brand new” from IKEA or Target or Walmart.
This dresser is exceptionally well made, I expect it to last for the rest of my life, even in spite of the slight damage. I should have taken the time to repair it before bringing it in and using it, but we don’t have anywhere to store things outside and I didn’t want it to get sun damaged. In the photo you can see the decorative foot at the bottom, and the drawers slide in and out perfectly. This is not a press board, stapled together piece of furniture. Now that kind of dresser should be thrown away after several years of use because they literally fall apart.
On the top of the dresser you can see my gorilla family that Mr. A collected for me last year after Valentine’s Day. It started with one small gorilla clearance priced to sell at $2 in the floral section at Safeway Grocery. There were two or three so he bought them all. A few days later he was at a different Safeway and he found a couple more discounted. Then he found the large gorilla, which is the father, of course. A few days later he found a couple more small ones, and then the medium sized gorilla, the mother. 😉 There are nine baby gorillas, so with mom and dad that makes 11. All clearance priced.
I have organized my drawers as I always do, you can see in this post, An Awesome Way to Organize Your Dresser Drawers. This dresser, by the way, is one of the press board numbers stapled together and the drawers fall out into my hands every time I open them. Very frustrating! I’ll be glad to toss this one into the dump!
Also, if you look carefully, you can see hearts in the top of the right mirror… those are from Valentine’s Day from this year. Mr. A painted heart signs and posted them along my commute for a couple of miles. It was very sweet and romantic, and very frugal. 🙂
I love getting things for free, especially when they are as well made as this dresser.
Wow I can’t believe that was going to be thrown away!
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I fold my stuff like that, too! I have things lined up from one side to the other instead of laying on top of each other. I like being able to see everything in one glance instead of having to dig through stacks.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
June 8th, 2012 at 11:17 am
Hi Alice!! I’m sorry my spam catcher went totally nuts on me and has been eating every comment for the past couple of weeks. I found you and rescued your comment. I really love sorting my drawers this way, glad to meet someone else who does the same! 🙂
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A good piece of furniture will last a lifetime unless you get sick of it. Unfortunately people are trained to dispose of it as soon as they get sick of it these days.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
June 8th, 2012 at 11:19 am
Hi Lance, as I told Alice, my spam catcher has been eating ALL my comments lately so I fished you out. It is just too bad the throwaway mentality of our society. At least they could donate to a thrift store! Thank you for visiting and commenting and sorry again about my too aggressive spam catcher!
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From one dumpster-diving thrift store queen to another: Congrats on a great find! And the gorillas are adorable!
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
June 8th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Hi Deborah! Thanks! I love my little gorilla family. I even named them all at one night when I couldn’t sleep (can’t remember all their names… Mom was Gertie… there was George, Gonzo… that’s all I can recall, lol).
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Deborah Collins Reply:
June 9th, 2012 at 7:38 am
@Mrs. Accountability, Very cute! A little girl told me the other day she named her new hamster, “Goo Goo Ga Ga” (our playroom’s super-secret password, btw), which would have been a good name for the baby gorilla!
Speaking of turning thrift store finds into treasures, I took three long lace curtain panels I bought for $1.50 & dyed them pink, then threaded elastic strips thru top and bottom hems & simply attached them to my 3-panel folding screen in my bedroom. Talk about beautiful (it was just plain white before).
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
June 9th, 2012 at 10:18 am
Deborah, awesome, I can just imagine how beautiful that looked. Thanks for sharing that tip! Mrs. A
Score on the dresser and mirrors and that is so sweet about the heart signs.
I love getting stuff for free. I started tracking just what I get for free by winning comps and sending away for samples etc… And that alone in the last 10 weeks has been over $3k worth of stuff. Most things around our house were free and when we got married we got completely set up for free.
I have a whiteboard in my kitchen (repurposed picture frame) where I have a list of things we would like/need so we can keep our eye out. It is amazing what has come into our lives for free.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
June 8th, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Kylie, oh my goodness, that is pretty amazing!! $3000 in ten weeks! Wow! Have you written a blog post about that? I would love to read it. 🙂 Oh, and that’s a great idea about keeping a list of things to look out for. My only question, how do you remember when you are at the thrift store if it’s home?
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I agree – Free is the best price!!!
Well done for – knowing what you wanted, being prepared to wait for it and taking action when you found the perfect piece.
Much better memory to have than a trip to a new furniture store and the hell that is flat-pack construction.
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