Do you throw little things away?

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I know many of you will think I’m taking hoarding to extremes, but I never throw anything potentially useful away, and I’m constantly surprised by the things other people throw out without a second thought. I’m talking about things like zips and buttons off old clothes, hinges and bolts off old doors, that kind of thing. Of course you end up with ‘clutter’ taking up space but then it comes in handy when you want to make something else. Our next project is a big pencil case for Little One, for example (why are shop-bought pencil cases always too short to hold a standard 30-cm ruler??) and I know we have some denim from old jeans and a choice of zips available. Yesterday I was looking for some new handles for a chest of drawers. I picked up the chest that a neighbour had left outside for the taking, it’s quite a nice piece although it needs a bit of tidying up and it has three drawer handles missing. So I was looking around for replacements, either to match the three that remain, which are a modern style, or some more old-fashioned type of handles that would fit with the style of the room better. The ones I liked best were these (hopefully the link will show up), £11.19 for two from Screwfix (which is one of the cheaper retailers). OK that isn’t going to break the bank, but I need six so that’s over £33 which in my book is quite a lot to spend on something many people would barely notice. I bet lots of people have thrown things like that out without a second thought. I decided I would come home and have a really good rummage about first to see what I could find at home, just in case I had something suitable already. If not I can buy them next time I’m in town, but I didn’t want to find out afterwards that I had bought new ones unnecessarily!