One Man's Trash...

 ...is my treasure. Here's some recent revamps I've created from other people's "rubbish".

I'm a self-confessed skip diver and if I spot a full skip on the kerb simply cannot resist rummaging through, especially late at night on the way home from the pub. It's amazing what people throw away. In the past we've found everything from original sash window units, antique panelled interior doors, complete with beehive knobs and finger plates, to Victorian skirting boards and cast iron fire surrounds, all of which have saved us a fortune in the epic saga of our home refurbishment.

 Legally you should always ask the owner's permission before you make off with the contents of the skip but if the house is unoccupied wouldn't it be a crime not to liberate it from landfill?

The 1930's dressing table was destined for the tip by the landlord of a house I was renting back in the Eighties and he let me have it for free. It's been festering in a shed for years. I sanded it down and painted it in Crown's Fairy Dust, a peppermint pink eggshell finish paint.

The kidney shaped stool was a fairly recent Saturday night find. It's painted in the same shade and reupholstered with a jumble sale curtain and a salvaged pom-pom trim. The vintage metal bin was one of a pair I bought for 10p from a jumble sale and the goat skin was £2 from a car boot sale.

I've got three of these 1960's Avon bluebird pomanders which I fill with lavender. They were pennies from a church bring and buy.

These little dears were 25p from one of the last of the season's car boot sales. The seller had them since the Sixties.

The vintage musical box was 50p at a car boot sale, it's nowhere near big enough to fit my collection.

 You've seen her before but I never tire of looking at my gorgeous 1950's plaster lamp base.

This dressing table mirror was a skip find ages ago, the glass is rather foxed so I glued on some advertisements cut out from a pile of tatty, mouse-nibbled 1930's magazines a friend found in their attic.

I found this rotary dial phone in a skip, too. It works perfectly although it takes an age to dial for a pizza.

My dad only just had his original 1960's ivory one replaced by BT with a modern push button telephone on Friday. I'll be liberating that next week as knowing my father it will be in the bin before I know it.