Dumpster shopping

It's a real luxury to have the kind of life where I can drop everything to spend a day pulling ceiling tiles out of a dumpster, I think.

Our basement ceiling tiles have been kind of dank and ugly for, oh, I dunno, about two decades now.   When I suggested to a realtor a couple of years ago that we might want to replace them before putting the house on the market, she shrugged it off: it's just a basement.   So I didn't put replacing these tiles high on my priority list, even though their ugliness has kind of niggled at me for a while now.

Two summers ago, a construction crew swept through the second floor of the building I work in and pulled out all the ceiling tiles and light fixtures.  All of the old stuff went into a dumpster.   As they were finishing up,  a lightbulb went off in my head: these tiles they were taking out were "old", but honestly much much nicer than the ones in my home.  I nabbed one from the the dumpster, took it home to see if it fit.   The answer is "yes, if I cut it in half".  (My ceiling tiles are 2'x2'; the ones in my building are doubled, 2'x4').  Unfortunately, by the time I got back to work, the dumpster had been removed.  So I was out of luck for getting more.

Then last year, a construction crew swept through the third floor of the building I work in.  This time I was ready --- or so I thought.  But before I could get to the dumpster, the rains came in and soaked everything.  Soggy ceiling tiles just disintegrate when you touch them.   Then this year, on Monday, the construction crew returned and swept through the first floor of my building.  On Monday, alas, I was in meetings all day and the rain started at noon.  The soaking rain and then drizzle continued through Tuesday.

Then Wednesday, the sun broke through the clouds, both literally and metaphorically.   A new set of ceiling tiles went out to the dumpster.  I looked for someone to ask permission from, but couldn't find anyone.  So I dropped my plans for refereeing a paper and editing a chapter, and went home and got my green wagon.  

As I was loading the wagon up with tiles, a guy in a pickup truck pulled up.  "Are you getting tiles out of the dumpster?" he asked.   I admitted I was; I was taking tiles that were still in relatively good shape.   He started to get nervous.  "They didn't tell us to save any tiles; they told us to throw everything out.  They didn't tell us we needed to save any of them."   I realized he thought that *he* had done something wrong.  I assured him that I was not "them"; I was just dumpster diving.  He drew a big sigh of relief.

Some of the old tiles loaded up for the return to the dumpster.

I can't show you how huge my wagon was loaded, because I was in such a hurry to get these home before the dumpster left that I didn't grab my phone until much later.   The wagon was loaded 3 feet high with ceiling tiles.   A bunch of my friends saw me heading home and high-fived me for my finds.  (I'm really lucky to be surrounded by fellow eco-nuts who admire my quirkiness instead of thinking that I'm an embarrassment to all things decent).   I spent a happy afternoon with my circular saw, and installed the "new" tiles. 

Then I loaded up the old ugly tiles and hauled them back to the dumpster, putting them in as neatly as I could.  

Where I shop for ceiling tiles.

Today, I'm getting back to refereeing and editing.  But before I do, I'm going to say it again: I'm really lucky to have the freedom to do things like this:  freedom in the sense of having control over my time.  Freedom in the sense of having friends who think this is admirable, rather than icky.  Freedom in the sense of being established enough in my career and my community that I don't have to fret about the inevitable people who might wrinkle their noses at this.  Freedom in the sense of being financially secure enough that I'm doing this more for fun than out of necessity.

Man, this was fun.