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bushbunkie
Member
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# Posted: 11 Mar 2017 13:33
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As pathetic as it sounds, "date night" for my wife and I nowadays means grabbing a cup of Tim Hortons coffee and heading to our local Restore to cruise for potential "cabin finds". I usually start at the appliance section looking (hoping, praying) that someone may have discarded a propane fridge....we all know how much they can cost and how hard used ones - in good working order-are hard to find! So last week after cruising through that section, I come upon this Domitec Cooler that has a marker on it that says 110 power only - $20.00... Just for the heck of it I turn it around...and see a propane hook up. Now in Ontario, you can't get one of these for under $400 - $500 new.
I figure $20.00 is worth a gamble to keep my meat, milk and beer cold at the cabin - so I buy it. I get home, clean it up and blow all the dust out and the anticipation begins to mount...first it holds a pilot flame...when I turn the dial to max, I hear the whoosh of the burner...OK...but will it actually still cool anything? I put a jar of salsa from the cupboard into the cooler and wait two hours...come back and its almost frozen...awesome!!! My wife cheers "great scam, honey!!!" as I do the happy dance in my kitchen with her...and then my 18 year old son comes into the kitchen, shakes his head and heads to the basement...priceless
Anyone else have a great cabin Restore find out there?
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Smawgunner
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# Posted: 11 Mar 2017 17:22
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Was at ours today. Couple of months ago I found 2 Bose shelf speakers for 8 dollars each! They're freaking awesome!!!
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bldginsp
Member
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# Posted: 11 Mar 2017 17:40
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Have you seen Freecycle website? Dedicated to people giving away 'stuff' they don't want that's still usable. I got a very nice very old Standard bathroom sink from someone off that site, it's in my bathhouse now. But I've given away more than I've gotten- good way to clear out the closets-
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bushbunkie
Member
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# Posted: 11 Mar 2017 18:04
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Freecycle, eh? very cool...will check it out.
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 11 Mar 2017 19:47
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Quoting: bushbunkie ...first it holds a pilot flame...
Quoting: bushbunkie ...awesome!!!
OHHHHH...YEEEEEAH!
We know that one
(except for the 'first it holds a pilot flame' part)
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bldginsp
Member
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# Posted: 11 Mar 2017 21:39
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Well even if it doesn't work your $20 bought you a thrill.
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Ontario lakeside
Member
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# Posted: 11 Mar 2017 22:29
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We got the front window for out cabin at a restore. Triple pane custom made nearly 8'X6' and a perfect fit for us! $130
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bldginsp
Member
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# Posted: 12 Mar 2017 00:38
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1/10th the price! Quite a deal.
I bought 4 aluminum windows, 40x60, off Craigslist about 5 years ago for $200. Pretty cheap windows but I figured they'd be okay for my cabin. Well at the last minute I decided not to use them and got Andersons. $4000 for six windows. Wow. The others will work for the octagon.
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bobrok
Member
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# Posted: 12 Mar 2017 09:14
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+1 on Craigslist for me.
$1200 Grumman alum canoe - $400
6 vinyl replacement windows - $190
4 16' PT ramp sections and 8' x 8' deck - $100
Dozen other finds but those are my biggies.
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skootamattaschmidty
Member
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# Posted: 12 Mar 2017 12:59
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I got a large window for the bathroom, a sink for the vanity and laminate flooring at our restore. Can't remember what I paid but it was incredibly cheap. I also got an old claw foot bathtub for $80 on kijiji as well as styrofoam insulation for under my sauna floor.
At our house in town my wife has been hitting the restore up to redecorate a bedroom. She found some great deals on decorating ideas that a simple coat of paint made look new. She is hooked now!
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 12 Mar 2017 15:18
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Kijiji is my go-to place for used items. Well, that and the local Value Village. Lots of stuff at my cabin came from there.
My limited experience with the Re-Store (Habitat for Humanity) is that their prices are ridiculous. They generally don't give stuff away, to the point it's better to buy new with a guarantee.
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KinAlberta
Member
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# Posted: 12 Mar 2017 15:51 - Edited by: KinAlberta
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I'll have to check out our value villages more often. It's more hit and miss with them.
You have to look for the buried treasure at restore. I don't find much acceptable for the city home but I do find great stuff for the cabin- especially since I'm trying to replace a lot of newer stuff out there with older stuff with more "rustic" looking characteristics. (Say try to replace the 1970s multicoloured velour sofa with a 1950s of older wood edged couch - still searching) So I'm after the cheap stuff people are giving away from grandma's house that don't fit modern interiors.
Also, finding some dark bronze fixtures fairly cheap donated by big box stores that have a nice traditional look.
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 12 Mar 2017 18:34 - Edited by: Wilbour
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Quoting: KinAlberta I'll have to check out our value villages more often. It's more hit and miss with them.
I have one that's about 2 km's (78740 1/5 inches for my American friends) from my home. It's virtually on my way home from work so I have no excuse to do a very quick scan every other day.
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bobrok
Member
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# Posted: 12 Mar 2017 19:41
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Quoting: Wilbour 2 km's (78740 1/5 inches for my American friends)
LOL! Spot on according to my calculator!!!
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 12 Mar 2017 21:48
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Our nearest Restore thinks it’s some sorta high end antique boutique.
Neat stuff.
Not that neat.
We scour the thrift stores, Goodwill, Value Village.
Winter clothes, for the woods.
Sweater/sweatshirt/coat hell.
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melloway
Member
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# Posted: 13 Mar 2017 05:30
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Quoting: bushbunkie As pathetic as it sounds, "date night" for my wife and I nowadays means grabbing a cup of Tim Hortons coffee and heading to our local Restore to cruise for potential "cabin finds". I usually start at the appliance section looking (hoping, praying) that someone may have discarded a propane fridge....we all know how much they can cost and how hard used ones - in good working order-are hard to find! So last week after cruising through that section, I come upon this Domitec Cooler that has a marker on it that says 110 power only - $20.00... Just for the heck of it I turn it around...and see a propane hook up. Now in Ontario, you can't get one of these for under $400 - $500 new. I figure $20.00 is worth a gamble to keep my meat, milk and beer cold at the cabin - so I buy it. I get home, clean it up and blow all the dust out and the anticipation begins to mount...first it holds a pilot flame...when I turn the dial to max, I hear the whoosh of the burner...OK...but will it actually still cool anything? I put a jar of salsa from the cupboard into the cooler and wait two hours...come back and its almost frozen...awesome!!! My wife cheers "great scam, honey!!!" as I do the happy dance in my kitchen with her...and then my 18 year old son comes into the kitchen, shakes his head and heads to the basement...priceless Anyone else have a great cabin Restore find out there?
Way to go
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paulz
Member
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# Posted: 13 Mar 2017 07:58
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Quoting: Gary O Our nearest Restore thinks it’s some sorta high end antique boutique.
Yep, ours has valet parking. The local hardware store, OTOH, has a recycle area out back. Stuff strewn everywhere, pennies on the dollar. Much better.
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Eddy G
Member
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# Posted: 13 Mar 2017 10:10
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We have at 3 or 4 Re-Store's in our general area another not to far away....
I have found great buys at all of them....
Some are better then others and there isn't a lot of consistency between any of them.
A window in one will can run twice as much as the next one BUT they do negotiate prices if your reasonable.
From what I'm hearing I'm guessing we're a little more fortunate then other places because the prices I've seen are right in line if not less then the other places (Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc...)
I bought 3 brand new Anderson series 400 windows for less then the price of 1....I'd have never spent the $250 each the Home Depot is looking for...
I've made it part of my routine to stop in and check out what's new whenever I can....
Still a lot to do at our cabin, construction materials to furniture all in one place, at a discount...what's not to like?
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Cowracer
Member
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# Posted: 13 Mar 2017 10:17 - Edited by: Cowracer
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I generally stick with yard sales and rummage sales. People tend (though not always) to be more 'realistic' on prices. Funny thing is I usually wind up buying more things for friends than I do myself. My last plum find was like that.
I have a camping buddy who collects/restores old Coleman lanterns. I never figured out why, but he has maybe 20-30 of them. He has tried a few times to get me to appreciate the finer points of those little portable bombs, but I really don't share his enthusiasm for burning to death.
(FYI: He is the one without the concerned look on his face in the above pictures. Apparently, you are supposed to have a bit of "collateral fire" when properly lighting a Coleman lantern)
One of his prize pieces is a 1959 unit. I can only imagine that the docents in the Vatican archives use as much care opening historic documents as my buddy does bringing out his 59 lantern. He did show me how to read the date it was made off the bottom. Because of his passion, anytime I see a Coleman lantern I feel compelled to check the date code on the bottom.
A couple weeks ago, we were at a huge sale at the parking lot of our local Six Flags, when I spotted an old lantern. I looked underneath it and it was made in September of 1955. "How much?" says I. $8 was the reply. I offered him 5 and he took it. Again knowing nothing about vintage Coleman lanterns, I'm wondering if I found an old, but common unit, or the Holy Grail of lanterns. I sent my buddy a picture and I didn't know it was possible to respond to a text with actual drool.
What he don't know is that I'm gonna pack it up and send it to him. I have no use for the thing, and I know he would really like to have it. Of course the wife is like "I really like it. It would look cool hanging in the cabin". Hush woman! She has never even so much as touched a Coleman lantern in her life and now she wants one to hang in the cabin? I told her I'd find her a nice 70's or 80's model.
Tim
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bldginsp
Member
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# Posted: 13 Mar 2017 16:22
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I see you have no nostalgia for the workhorses of the past.
But I must say, after years of struggling with Coleman white gas lanterns, it was a big relief when I got a couple of propane lanterns.
The price of white gas has skyrocketed in the last few years. It used to be about 150% the price of gasoline, now it's 5-600 percent. The little propane canisters are quite pricey depending on where you get them, but easy to refill from a 20lb bottle with the right gadget. Lowers the cost to about $1/canister.
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Just
Member
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# Posted: 13 Mar 2017 19:48
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Thats a model 100 with curved glass you can still buy parts from colman .I have a identical to it ,probly burn 3 gal of fuel a year in mine.. you can mix it half and half with high test gas and it will still burn fine !!!
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KinAlberta
Member
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# Posted: 14 Mar 2017 17:42
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Got a solar tube light in the box at a restore today. Bought myself an unplanned job.
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 15 Mar 2017 12:06
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Quoting: KinAlberta Got a solar tube light in the box
Put one of those in our home's kitchen a few years ago. What a difference. My dad commented on how the $300 for the unit could have bought a lot of light bulbs 
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creeky
Member
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# Posted: 15 Mar 2017 14:23
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Quoting: Wilbour could have bought a lot of light bulbs
But the electricity you save! why at 8hrs a day. x 20 watts. thats 160 watts a day. times 365 days. that's over 5kw a year.
At .12/w for electricity. Your pay back is only 428 years!
Oh wait. Less the price of the bulbs. Two bulbs. LED. Thats 4 bucks in savings. So make that a 427 year pay back.
Think what yer dad'll be saying about your investment then.
My best deal from the Restore lately was a 6 dollar outside light with motion detector. Currently residing in my projects to do shed. Hmmm.
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KinAlberta
Member
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# Posted: 15 Mar 2017 17:41 - Edited by: KinAlberta
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Quoting: Wilbour Quoting: KinAlberta Got a solar tube light in the box Put one of those in our home's kitchen a few years ago. What a difference. My dad commented on how the $300 for the unit could have bought a lot of light bulbs
Light bulbs are cheap, electricians aren't.
Oh, I only paid $125. But our electricity is just 7-8 c/kWh.
Soon we'll be able to live in boxes without windows creating huge savings and adding loads of insulation. Cameras and Flat screens for windows in each room, or a robot that hauls one around... who needs natural light anyway.
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 16 Mar 2017 14:11
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Quoting: creeky At .12/w for electricity. Your pay back is only 428 years!
That's our "Wynne, Wynne" situation
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moneypitfeeder
Member
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# Posted: 25 Apr 2017 00:51
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My find was no where near as exciting as the previous posts, but I was thrilled with my restore $0.25 door handle for our bedroom!
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Jim in NB
Member
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# Posted: 25 Apr 2017 07:16
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Renew stores in New Brunswick have changed in the last few years - prices going way up but if you watch, you can get deals. My best find while building was the front windows for the camp - $60 each. Since then probably books - the one in Saint John seems to be a drop off for a book reviewer and sometimes they have sales - 25 cents a book. At that price you cannot go wrong. Odd coming up to the counter with a shopping cart loaded with books.
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Steve_S
Member
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# Posted: 25 Apr 2017 07:44
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Goodness Gracious, I had just stopped into a Restore and nearly fainted... My Goodness they were charging as much for used / recovered as brand spanking new ! I asked them what the heck is up with that, the answer... The landlords have raised the rent so much they had to up the costs and now sales are way down and they either have to close up or move IF they can get something cheap enough... I think that another part of it, is that it has become somewhat "Trendy" and the staff upped costs to get more $ from Affluent Trend Followers...
Seems just like everything else... the deals exist until the masses make it trendy at which time the profiteers take over.
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Eddy G
Member
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# Posted: 25 Apr 2017 15:00
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That's exactly right. There was a time you could pick up an old sign or something cool at a yard sale or flea market until AMERICAN PICKERS came along...
Now everyone thinks they have RUSTY GOLD...and their old garden water can is worth $100 so it can be repurposed in to a rustic shower nozzle or something...
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