Attempting to donate furniture to charity

Try Market Place on facebook. Especially if you don't want any money for items, you may be lucky.

In our area, there is a charity called Project Colt...they train people to do upholstery and welcome items to use. Have you got something similar in your area, who would be glad of your chairs?

Marydoll

I tried to donate a modern dining table in good condition, no-one wanted it because I wasn't including the chairs.
After I put it on gumtree for free, I was inundated with messages.
The gentleman, who took it, put it in his van and drove off without as much as a thank you! ?

Oh that's a shame Marydoll and very different from our experience when we gave away a glass dining table we couldn’t sell. It had two folding panels on the side which could be pulled out to make it into a round table. The people who took it turned up with the whole family and when DH showed them how the panels worked a little girl said it was the coolest table she had ever seen.

Are there still auction sales for furniture?
We have several pieces that we bought at auctions eg dining room table and chairs. We re-upholstered the seats. And a heavy dining room dresser.
The problem is that these large heavy items don't fit into smaller modern houses and are difficult to move. Like pianos.
People move house more often now than they did in the past.

Callistemon

Tat not that

Obviously autocorrect does not like tat either.

Just like this?

Geekesse, when people act as you describe, it is horrible, I do agree, but, yes, I didn't meet that attitude.

My parents set up home in wartime and just after, and my grandparents, were never in a position to buy new furniture so secondhand is just the fabric of my life, even when we did not do it for economic reasons. I have been visiting auction rooms since I was a toddler and DH's grandfather was an antiques dealer and furniture restorer. Secondhand is in my DNA

M0nica you said ‘none of us gets rid of anything without offering it around the family, furniture, clothes, household goods. When we set up home we were very happy to have everyone cast offs until we could afford to buy furniture of our own.‘

That’s great - if you offer things and people would like them, no problem. What I found unpleasant was the sneering implication that poor people shouldn’t be so picky as to want matching furniture or a flat-screen TV. Almost everything we had when the kids were growing up was second hand, but it was our choice of second hand, sometimes from junk or charity shops, very occasional hand-downs from relatives, and quite a few things we made or renovated ourselves. When you are very hard up, one of the very few ways you can hold on to dignity is by exercising choice.

I tried to give away two leather two- seater reclining sofas, with fire safety certificate. Charities not interested so I put them on Freecycle. They were snapped up by a young woman who was moving into her first place on her own.
She sent me a big bouquet of flowers, chocolates and a photo of them in their new home as a thank you.

Thanks everyone for your replies. The problem is that we bought 2 new chairs before disposing of the old ones, not realising that it would be so difficult to donate them. Lesson learnt! In future if we wish to update anymore furniture, will definitely try to donate/sell before buying replacements.

Well, Geekesse I will be honest and say we have never been down to the last 2 halfpennies to rub together, nor have any of our family, but none of us gets rid of anything without offering it around the family, furniture, clothes, household goods. When we set up home we were very happy to have everyone cast offs until we could afford to buy furniture of our own. Despite now being comfortably off now, we all have houses full of secondhand furniture.

I am the proud possessor of a Victorian pot holder (as in chamber pot) we bought it at auction in the late 1960s, when I had no place for it I offered it round and my mother snapped it up, from there it went to one sister then the other and is currently back with me.

Bluebell another funny story. I was vacuuming out my car, leant the vacuum against the front wall, went indoors to get a cloth and when I came out , my vacuum had gone. Someone must have thought I’d put it there to be taken. ???

In our area, before the first lockdown, there used to be, in some places, great big pink bins for donations of school uniform. I thought this was a good idea, but not sure how it was distributed. But sadly I haven't seen any recently.

Callistemon

^I despair of the Victorian do-gooding attitude in some of these posts!^

You've obviously never been hard up in your life, geekesse
Lucky you.

Oh, I have. And I used to find the patronising attitude of those who thought I should welcome their junk annoying. I wanted to choose my own cheap stuff, not have someone else’s cast offs foisted on me. We once sat on orange boxes and ate off tea chests while we saved for some decent furniture.

Oh what a great idea!
I'd be really pleased if they would.
Thank you!

MissAdventure

I've currently got 3 black sacks full of boys clothes on freecycle, for the second time.
Quite a lot of it is brand new, the uniform, well I'm sure some of you know about that.
Lots of branded tracksuits, and a pair of kickers, worn 3 times.

No takers. I'm cross!

what about ringing local food bank, see if they could use it or know of somewhere/one who could.

I'll buy anyone's junk if I happen to need it.

I really enjoy the thought of it having a history of it's own.

Well I don’t know about elsewhere but the charity shops in my area will only accept furniture and baby equipment which is in excellent condition.

I have never seen anything resembling tat in any of them so it’s certainly not a case of people using them to dispose of junk.

We put my mums chair out with a sign on it.
First some kids wheeled each other up and down the road on it, then a harassed looking man asked if he could have it.

He had to come back for it, as his car was full up with mum-in-law, her frame, her wheelchair, etc. it was for her.

I love to think it's seen a bit more life and helped someone with their independence.

Charity shops would not take my OH's riser recliner chair even though it was only a few months old - because I had removed the fire safety label to stop it looking so institutional. I gave it to someone on freecycle.

I despair of the Victorian do-gooding attitude in some of these posts!

You've obviously never been hard up in your life, geekesse
Lucky you.

We are downsizing and I have got rid of lots of items, from clocks, ornaments and pictures to a dining suite and two huge old sofas by using our local Nextdoor website or just putting them at the end of the drive/ on the garden wall. The old sofas went to Irish Wolfhound Rescue. I expect the smaller stuff will end up at a car boot sale but that's fine - I just wanted rid.

sodapop

Thank you for the laugh
We always say that burglars would be very disappointed if they broke in here.

I put some things in an auction before I moved to France. The auction house had them for a couple of weeks before the sale. I had a message from the auctioneer to say they had a burglary and the sale was delayed, he said fortunately none of my stuff was taken. I was a bit miffed to think it wasn't even good enough for burglars,

Tat not that

Obviously autocorrect does not like tat either.

tat

Well, some people may think that wooden furniture is preferable to MDF that!

It depends on what your standards are, of course.