As we walked around A C Moore to discover what was left of the very diminished stock they had available a couple of days before closing I saw a sign up on a floral display that stated "Free if you haul away today". I double checked with a staff member of the store and found that the displays were truly free. As I talked to Lynn about she thought it was a great idea as well. The displays contained twenty-four 16 inch tall metal french floral buckets. After we paid for the items we had selected I went to grab the display and was going to meet Lynn at door. As I walked out the door of the store pushing a rather large display (think a set of stairs, 4 feet wide, 4 steps tall with a series of 8 buckets bolted to each of the top 3 steps) Lynn realized that when I said the displays were free, it was not just the buckets. Much to her dismay I wheeled out an entire store display that the store had used to display their selections of floral bouquets and all I wanted was a couple of the floral buckets to plant some carrots.
Lynn, having realized exactly what I had done, was wondering what I was going to do with this rather large store display. I wheeled it out to where I had parked, reached into the tool kit I keep in the truck and quickly unscrewed all of the pots leaving just the base display as people moving back and forth in the busy parking lot were looking to see exactly what I was doing. At one point someone even stopped to ask if we owned a florist. Loading up our loot we moved on to Lowe's hardware to look at some of the seasonal items even though I had just acquired plant pots that would be perfect for my needs.
I will leave Lynn to tell her version of the story as much hilarity ensued and she took pictures, called her mom to show her what I was doing, called my mom to see if she knew what I was doing and had everyone in stitches laughing at my ingenuity... But all told come to the end of the day I scored for free 24 french floral buckets to use as plant pots that are beautiful, tall and similarly sized items sell for $20-30/each online. I netted a savings of about $500 just because I was willing to spend a half hour unbolting a few pots from a wood display stand and then break the stand down into small enough parts to dispose of. Oh, I did get a free set of 4 casters as well that I will make a furniture dolly with for when we move. Purchasing the caster wheels would be about $100 or a pre-made furniture dolly would cost about the same. Keep an eye out and you could save big with a few minutes worth of work.
I will leave Lynn to tell her version of the story as much hilarity ensued and she took pictures, called her mom to show her what I was doing, called my mom to see if she knew what I was doing and had everyone in stitches laughing at my ingenuity... But all told come to the end of the day I scored for free 24 french floral buckets to use as plant pots that are beautiful, tall and similarly sized items sell for $20-30/each online. I netted a savings of about $500 just because I was willing to spend a half hour unbolting a few pots from a wood display stand and then break the stand down into small enough parts to dispose of. Oh, I did get a free set of 4 casters as well that I will make a furniture dolly with for when we move. Purchasing the caster wheels would be about $100 or a pre-made furniture dolly would cost about the same. Keep an eye out and you could save big with a few minutes worth of work.
