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Thursday, February 7, 2013

Are you a picker?

Do you watch late night television. I must admit to often being sucked in to the trash that fills the box late in the evening. In recent months there have been shows all about "Pickers". I love the word 'pickers'. At first, I think of nose pickers. Or garbage pickers. Pickers sounds foul.

But pickers are the people that pick the junk and see value. They could also be considered finders of vintage, searches of antiques, designers, recyclers or artists.

They search through trash and find the treasure that other people want.

I recently found my own little bits of treasure, I am not really sure exactly how they will end up yet, but I knew they couldn't just be added to the wood heap.



I have scrubbed the dirt, the bugs, the cobwebs and probably a few memories off these drawers and I am considering putting them up on my walls as a shelf type thingie.




They are the only thing I took from a shed full of stuff that had been hiding away for some time.


The drawers were built in the late 1800s, the one with the compartments was actually the till draw of a pub. The counter is still inside Mum's house with some minor alterations. People were clearly 'pickers' back then too, with wood scarce or expensive or whatever, they have used old packing cases to make these drawers, the print is still on the sections of wood.

The kids spent hours together playing shops and making cafes. The trash really was their treasure, they were disappointed to see it get packed up and thrown away.

Some people love modern, others love anything old, I am a bit of a mix, loving clean lines of new things but old things just tell so many stories and are so much more interesting.

Note the old meat keeper above, it was found in the underground pantry behind the maids quarters.

Are you a picker of any kind? What would you do with these old drawers?

6 comments:

  1. Not sure what to do with your drawers but we are aicking, op shopping, second hand kind of family. Very few pieces of furniture in the house are /were bought new. Not to say that we don't like new things - just love the character behind something old. One of our tree change "misses" is the hard rubbish collection. No such thing up here.......

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  2. I come from a long line of pickers and I'm proud. Although, not sure if I like the word pickers.

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  3. I always think of a nose pickers too LOL. I think a wall shelf is perfect I can say I am from Melbourne as well and for a moment white hot jealousy coursed through me when I realized these could have been sitting in my garage - AWESOME find, can't wait to see what you do! Newest GFC follower xo

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  4. I'm a wannabe picker - I do love the bi-annual verge collection in our area, because we live with the grey rinse brigades who hoard away their cool old furniture until they're ready to move into nursing homes. Only, I'm too paranoid someone will be watching me pick through it all like a seagull. By the time I work up the courage to have a look (read: under the cover of darkness when nobody can identify me), some braver person than I has already taken the piece I wanted.

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  5. My husband is a complete picker. He's the one driving around scouring the piles of Council pick up! I thought he was insane at first but now he's got me into it. Just picked up "The Catcher In The Rye" and a beautiful Atlas this morning on the way to daycare drop off, actually.
    I bet those drawers could tell you a few stories!

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  6. I wish I could. I hate dirty stuff so I would probably first ask my husband to clean it, inspect it for anything alien etc. Then, maybe just then, after disinfecting it 10 times, i'd probably be OK with it.

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