Freecycle

Have you heard of Freecycle?  I joined our local group at the end of last year when we found out we were moving & I had lots of decluttering to do.  I have used Ebay many times but some of the stuff that I wanted to get rid of was very unlikely to make much/any money & I didn't want to just throw it away.

Freecycle is great as you can just advertise the things that you have to offer & people will contact you to take them off your hands for free.  Perfect!  I managed to give away some old framed pictures, baby equipment, wallpaper - all sorts!!  When we moved into this house there was a HUGE electric organ (church-style) that the owner had been trying to get rid of for months.  I asked his permission to put it on Freecycle & it was gone within 24 hours - result!  Of course, the other benefit of being a member of Freecycle is that you can also GET stuff for free.

As you know, we are in the process of decorating our dining room & you may have noticed in previous photos that we have a fire in there.  Previously there had just been a shelf above it to act as a mantelpiece.  When someone advertised a solid wood fire surround on Freecycle I jumped at the chance to ask for it.  I was so lucky to be chosen to have it.  This was a perfect solution to update the room without spending a huge amount of money as we are only renting.  Here's the fire surround that we got:

Nice right?

Hubby is going to paint it white to match the rest of the woodwork.  He's in the process of doing the glossing at the moment:

It's made such a huge difference to the room already & he's only put undercoat on the cupboards so far!  Fingers crossed that I'll be able to post a dining room reveal post in the next week or two.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.  Stay warm - we've got more snow again today & I think that more has been forecast for the weekend.

xxx