Trash Tales

I just read an old article on pickers in New York (in a magazine picked up at Value Village, but that's another story). Being a picker sounds like my dream job: all you do is dig in the trash, yard sales, thrift shops and the like and then sell the Tudor signet rings and Salvador Dalis you find to antique and collectible dealers for thousands of dollars. A trash trover myself, I say successful picking is the result of having a great eye, an opportunist attitude, and the guts to rifle through junk on the sidewalk for all to see. I haven't found anything too meaningfully valuable, but most of my pad is furnished with respectable and slightly impressive curbside gems. My street is treasure alley: I spotted the copper side table (pictured here) that's stamped "Firenze Italy" across from my apartment; ditto for the chair - and that bit of blue you see is the corner of a Barrymore love seat a former love literally pulled from the dumpster. The quilted red pillow was found at good 'ole VV for a few bucks, as was the black statuette. The Hermes scarf poster: five bucks at a church sale.

TIPS: People throw out all kinds of amazing stuff, so don't assume it's crap if it's in the trash. I look for solid wood pieces and anything with good lines. I've had fab luck with upholstered chairs, though I won't bring anything in that's stinky and I always vacuum my finds 50 times (sometimes I'll even leave a chair out on the balcony for a few days). I've used a non-chemical bug be-gone silica powder type stuff to ease my mind about creepy crawlies, but honestly I've never had any bug problems....