Autumn gold in the form of a lampshade

Why oh why did I leave that lampshade behind when I moved? It was a little frayed (true) and a little outdated (more true), but I had it. Maybe I was worried it would get ruined in the moving van, perhaps I was just focused on my plants surviving, either way, silly.  Soon after arriving in the new city I went to an actual retail store buy a barrel lampshade. I didn't like the prices.  Ok, how about thrift stores? The Cambridge Goodwill seemed to have lampshades, there must be something similar in this other major metropolitan area, right?  If so, I haven't found it. Between work, travel, and having a life the lampshade acquisition project got moved down the priority list pretty regularly, the result being that the lamp sat without a shade... for 10 months.  A few weeks ago I tried visit a flea market where I had heard they sold lampshades, but I went the wrong day of the weekend.
Thrifting fail. 
Last weekend on the proper day I drove by the same flea market, no shades in sight. Sigh. At that point I was almost resigned to shelling out the money to buy a nice white linen barrel shade, but then an early Thanksgiving gift appeared on the loading dock next to the recycling bin.

Sorry this is sideways, try turning your phone!

An (almost) barrel shade, for free! No rips or mysterious stains.

Full story: this golden sand lampshade was attached to a black floor lamp, also perfectly nice. In the initial rush of excitement I only took the shade, but then around 1 a.m. on Saturday I thought, "hmm, maybe I should go back downstairs and see if that lamp is still there. We could use some better lighting in the apartment." Down the elevator, onto the loading dock, and yes, the floor lamp was still there!   I took it upstairs to test it.... and that is a story for another post.

Happy freestyling.

Hanging in there

For all two of the Cambridge Freestyle followers out there, you might have noticed a precipitous drop-off in posts after February 2013.  Moving to a new city and starting a real-ish job put a crunch in my sidewalk-hunting and blog-posting time, but the Freestyle spirit lives on.   Living in a large apartment building has its advantages, besides the gym and free coffee in the lobby there is a loading dock....with dumpsters. I don't even have to leave the building to indulge in a freestyle search, it is quite a change.  Another change is that I have a lot of space for hanging clothes, and no dresser, pretty much the opposite of my last apartment. Lucky for me, sometimes people discard perfectly good hangers in the recycling bin.

Multicolor free plastic

Never fear, I wash them before using.  

Even the fancy ones.

Someone in my building is fancy! That person is not me.

Too bad they don't just set up an official free bin somewhere in the building. I imagine lots of perfectly usable durable goods get discarded when people move every month. Such a waste!  Meanwhile, my clothes are sitting pretty on their freestyle hangers.