Woot! For Free Stuff!

The last two days has been full of goodies! Yesterday I came home to find 3 bags of maternity clothes that were handed down from my friend Mary! There was all sorts of stuff in there, for every occasion, and weather! I was pretty excited because I wasn't looking forward to having to buy clothes I would only be wearing for a few months.

THEN, this morning I was looking out the window and there were TWO couches (well, a couch and a love seat) sitting on the communal corner. I call it that because whenever people have furniture that they want to get rid of, they stick out on the corner, and it's gone within 24 hours usually. We've put a lot of stuff out there, and sure enough! Gone the next day! Our couch, which we got for free almost 3 years ago is doing pretty poorly, and we were thinking we would have to buy one when we got back to the states, but nothing is better than free! More money for baby!

Anyway, they are made out of that microfiber stuff that feels like suede but isn't. They looked almost new from the upstairs window that I first caught a glimpse of them, but upon closer inspection, we found them to be absolutely disgusting! I thought, what the heck, lets bring them in and see if we can salvage them.

So, we started with this (click to see larger.. gross huh!):


And with a LOT of steam cleaning, Reslove, Mr. Cleans magic eraser, and a bunch of elbow grease, we ended up with this:

So much better! It just needs brushed to get the fibers soft again. They are all a bit matted from being wet, then drying. The couch started off in a bit better condition than the love seat, but I had already started cleaning it before I thought to do a before and after photo!

They aren't perfect, but they will get us by for quite a while I'm sure. It's true they say, one mans trash, is another mans treasure! Now, if only we had more room!