Wednesday, October 15, 2008

One man's trash


Lookie lookie what I found in a dumpster last week:


Why was I looking in the dumpster? Long story short - I was picking up a bulk food shipment from a drop-off point behind a window store, got there early and was killing time looking around at stuff. I found an employee and asked him if I could have the window. Sure, no problem. Hooray!

My mom is an antique dealer, and has no qualms about digging through people's attics, basements, dumpsters, etc. She's rare in the antique dealer world, in that she feels morally obligated to pay people a fair price for what they have. If she goes to a garage sale and she sees someone selling a $100 bowl for 50 cents, she'll offer to pay more. I think it's the thrill of the hunt that she enjoys, not the actual profit-making part of it.

When I told my mom about my window treasure find, she was so proud of me. She also told me to go back to the window store and offer to pay them $100 for any other stained glass windows they would otherwise throw away. I guess they sell for over $200 in antique shops.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the window. The broken pane is easily repaired by any stained-glass hobbyist. We don't really have a good existing window space to hang it, and I'm not sure I want to knock out part of a wall to make a new spot. We'll see.

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