More Trash to Treasure from the Curb

Well, I just got back from spending a week in San Diego during my kids spring break visiting family. Between that, figuring out my taxes (UGH!). I also finished the bookcase for my boys room - now if only my camera would cooperate and stop taking grainy photos! I think I need to change the ISO.

On with the post, I was driving on one of the highways near my home when I spotted this bookcase as well as two taller ones on the side of the road in front of a locally owned printing shop. I went inside to make sure they were free (which they were) and then proceeded to load it into my minivan BY MYSELF. People driving by must of thought I was crazy.

I had told my oldest son that I would build him a bookcase next that was extra deep in order to hold more of his larger lego creations. I figured that I would put this free one in his room as sort of a prototype to see if it would work out before building him one. But its been a hit so I think I'm going to put that project on the backburner and whip out another bookcase for the living room since he doesn't mind at all having a free bookcase in his room. You see the airplane on the top right shelf - that gives you an idea of how deep it goes!

CSN Giveaway Winner

Thanks for all your comments on this giveaway! And congratulations to comment #10, the Domestic Diva! I'll be getting in touch with you!

Surprise Giveaway from CSN Stores

I'm really excited to be hosting my first giveaway! CSN Stores marketing team contacted me and is offering a gift certificate to one of you lucky readers! Never heard of CSN? They have over 200 online stores where you can find everything from kids' swing sets to stylish furniture to cute cookware and more!

One lucky reader will receive a $15 gift certificate to any CSN store to purchase anything they would like! Here are a few things you need to know before you enter:

• Must live in the US or Canada. (CSN ships to those countries.)
• Does not cover any shipping costs but you can use it on ANY product at ANY one of their sites.
• You can gain an extra entry by leaving an additional comment on what you would love to have from the site listed above.
• Ends on Tuesday the 8th at midnight PST.
• I'll announce a winner on Wednesday the 9th and will use Random.org to pick the winning entry.

Enjoy!

Birthday Freebies

The popular website Frugal Girls did a great post on birthday freebies with the links to sign up. All the places are in alphabetical order and there is seriously a lot of places, 50+! Don't forget to sign up your spouse and kids too!

Spray Painting: Upright Freezer

I got this full upright freezer off of craigslist for 60 bucks, plus they brought it to our house 30 miles away for only 25 dollars, so 85 total. We had a chest freezer that we had outgrown since we have 3 growing boys (plus you never know what is on the bottom of the freezers without emptying the whole thing out) We sold it for 75 dollars via craigslist, so all in all this exchange came out to us being out of pocket 10 dollars. Sound too good to be true? Well, lets take a look INSIDE this lovely freezer.

It needed a good scrubbing, plus there were spots that the finish had been chipped off and rusted in its place.

Here is a closer look at what I am talking about. Lots of rust.

And the paint chipping on the bottom.

Spray paint to the rescue of course! Here's a before of one of the grills...

And here it is after. Looks like new again! I had some white gloss paint in my spray paint stash, so I used it, it definitely needed to be glossy so it would clean easily in the future.

And here is where the paint was chipping off big time. Looks WAY better.

And here is the fridge after. It seriously looked almost brand new again.

Another reason I LOVE spray paint.

And the bottom looks so much better! That was seriously gross the way it looked before. Spray paint to the rescue again! (And a really good scrubbin beforehand)