Nothing Wrong With a Dented Wastebasket
by Katy on January 28, 2025 · 57 comments
You may remember that someone stole my indoor recycling bins last year when I stupidly left them outside for maybe an hour. (Click HERE to read about it.) It was a huge bummer as they were vintage and cute and paired well with my built in 1914, updated in the 1940s kitchen. I’ve been making do with a small wicker basket I already owned, but it wasn’t ideal as kitchen recycling can be drippy and it ended up having to be emptied far too often. I was driving my husband to work this morning, (his electric bike is being repaired — thanks Portland potholes!) and pulled the minivan over for this rare winter “free pile.”
I recognized the Ikea “Dokument” metal wastebasket, as I used to own one. (My son now uses it for his under-sink bin.) I knew it would work well for our kitchen recycling as A) the bottom is solid metal, and B) it’s big enough to hold a week’s worth of recycling. Plus, you know . . . it was free!
I noted that the sides were dented, but was otherwise intact.
I brought her home and treated her to a soapy spa treatment to remove the general filthiness. You can appreciate how dented the sides are in this photo, but it makes no difference. It’ll hardly be the centerpiece of my home and it’s the perfect example of “Make it do!”
Here she is, all cleaned up and ready to filled with cardboard egg cartons, drippy cat food tins and various unwanted paper products. She’s dented, but functional.*
The thrifted metal bin to the right is for kitchen laundry, such as cloth napkins, dish towels and various cloth rags. It works great for this purpose, as the open design helps to everything to air out and avoid Oregon’s ever present mildew.
Our homes are not magazine showplaces and there’s nothing wrong with a dented wastebasket. The price was right, it saved this item from going into a landfill and no new items were manufactured to fulfill my need. The idea that our possessions need to be perfect comes from people who benefit from us spending our hard earned dollars on their products. Instead we can choose to buy used, repair our belongings, buy less and maybe even garbage pick a thing or two.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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* As am I, dear reader.
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{ 57 comments… read them below or add one }
“Dented but functional.” Me too. I may use that line!!!
You’re welcome!
I love the free pile stories the best. I have the same wastebasket in my basement office. I think I bought it at a garage sale a long time ago. Very functional and perfect for recycling. The other basket is really cute by the way.
Ikea items are greatly overmanufactured, so it’s likely we’l all have this wastebasket at some point in our lives.
Cheap is good. Free is better. Used is best. But sometimes, garbage is just garbage. You are too good to surround yourself with dented crap. Keep looking for a better recycling bin. I know you’ll find one soon!
Or . . . I am good enough to be content with a dented item.
I love a happy ending! Good work.
One of the most frugal things I do is NEVER watch those “home makeover” shows that all my friends seem to thrive on. As a result, they are always dissatisfied with their homes and on the lookout to make changes,upgrade, and generally spend whopping amounts of money.
My bathrooms are builder grade but very beautiful and functional.My decorating with pretty shower curtains and towels is fine. My next doorneighbor had a waterfall shower built, a river rock shower enclosure, and all new fixturues to the tune of many thousands of dollars.Is it gorgeous?Hell yeah.worth it? Not to me.
In retirement I find contentment in simply pleasures. When I wroked, my home “looked” neater and more pulled together.Now, we live here 24/;7 and use every inch.There are pile sof books everywhere.Art materials left out in my studio, a messy kitchen,often,casue I cook all three meals at home.It is live din and cherished.
Our homes are NOT magazine showplaces.. very profund thought,Katy!! I agree!!We need to turn a deaf ear to the runaway consumerism in t5his country that. fosters ovespending and discontent.
LOVE WHAT YOU HAVE.TAKE CARE OF IT! USE IT UP!!
I like my house to look cute and coherent with the 1914 era in which it was built. However, I’ve been able to achieve that with inexpensive thrifted and curb picked items.
My house is neat now that the kids are grown and flown, but it certainly wasn’t when they were kids and I worked as an RN.
Our store sells a wooden sign that has muddy handprints painted on it. It says, “Our house may not be tidy but the kids are making memories.” Good thought! (Not that’d I’d buy a sign, to do so would not be frugal.)
On a semi-related subject, I’ve found nice, clean, like-new indoor trashcans — including metal cans that have a lid operated by a pedal that would sell for a whole lotta $$$$ — at thrift stores for a couple of bucks apiece. Good time to look for them is after college lets out for the summer. Students dump household goods from their apartments and dorm, rather than moving them home or putting them into storage.
Madeline, I love everything you said and can sense your contentment.
As someone who has more than once styled my house for a magazine photoshoot (really), it is the biggest pain in the entire freaking world. I’m annoyed just thinking about it.
I almost bought a Josef Hoffman c. 1905 wastepaper basket at a local auction the other day for $20 (they go for $360 news), but I decided I couldn’t stand looking at garbage through its attractive design. Then I thought I could use it for something else but I couldn’t figure out what so left it. https://www.neuegalerie.org/shop/products/hoffmann-wastepaper-basket
Maybe just a couple small pieces of origami and one or two coordinated bits of crumpled paper to imply trash in the bottom. Dust weekly.
That bin looks like a tiny skyscraper!
Hoffmann was ahead of his time. Well, all the Weiner Werkstatte was, which is why it’s so valuable now. Anyone who’s interested, visit the Neue Galerie in New York, which is funded by Ron Lauder, Estee’s son. It’s where you can see Adele Bloch-Bauer by Klimt, too, which Lauder paid $135 million for. (Klimt was also in the Weiner Werkstatte.)
I watched a video once on the behind the scenes of a photoshoot. Prior to that, it had never occurred to me how much of the room’s contents had been manipulated for the layout.
I still enjoy checking out issues of Architectural Digest, Country Living, and Home Beautiful from our library. I think I might enjoy them more if they weren’t quite so staged.
Besides magazines, my place was photographed for One Kings Lane. I swear, for a year or more, every time the email subject line was “coastal” it was my damn house.
You have to move your stuff around so it’s not in the way of the perfect shot, hide other things ditto, then move stuff around more, then add carefully curated greens and flowers (you can’t see the stains in my 1920 sink when it’s full of flowers I “just picked”). It looked great but also so precious and twee. Look, here’s the hall tree (which is a beloved antique of mine) with a single jacket and a single straw hat on it, rather than the usual nightmare of 58 coats, dog leashes, crummy broken umbrellas, you name it. Ha!
You are a great inspiration.
Dents add character! I’ve never liked the look of a home where everything is brand new and matches. Our things should have stories.
I can see how your bins might have gone missing! My next door neighbor was organizing his garage, and put some items in the driveway while he was rearranging, and passersby kept assuming it was a free pile! He finally made a sign that said “NOT FREE. DO NOT TAKE!” Portland!
I see this, but choose to believe that someone stole them as they weren’t in the parking strip where people put “Free!” stuff, but were instead further back on my property.
That’s funny about your neighbor.
Similarly, I’ve had items (potted plants, Christmas wreath) vanish from my front porch. Crazy!
We’re very careful about what lives on our porch and hadn’t had anything stolen before that I can remember.
Two questions I ask myself when I’m tempted to order something online:
1. Can I thrift it?
2. Do I want to babysit my porch all day waiting for delivery?
The need for everything to look perfect is what I call the Instagram effect. Your cookie sheets look like they have been used?!? No!! Must fix immediately or throw them out and replace!
So ridiculous. If it isn’t a company selling something, it’s a content producer making up things that need to be done/organized/replaced.
I love the idea of carefully curated garbage on display !Perhaps a Damien Hirst
Style installation!
Just over a week since my participation in a nasty auto accident, followed by CPR, twice! I’m home now, feeling privileged to having survived, and looking forward to a recovery from broken ribs\ sternum, swelling , bruising and pain.
Although I’m 76 , medical staff were impressed by my resilience, and I plan to continue to survive!,I live alone in a vertical retirement village, so I’m fortunate in being surrounded by helpful residents, and family. I’m tiring, so will follow up ara later date
I’m so so happy that you pulled through!! ❤️
Holy Smokes, Coral! I’m impressed by your survival and resilience, too!
@Coral I am so glad you pulled through, those double CPRs must make you wonder about the craziness of the human body – particularly when they decided it wasn’t your heart but something else …. Keep on trucking, those darn ribs PLUS sternum will reduce your willlingness to take deep breaths, but I am sure your medical team are reminding you to TAKE DEEP BREATHS once every couple of hours – my mom broke some ribs and I recall her pained face as she dutifully breathed deeply, in a successful effort to avoid pneumonia or other lung issues.
I’m glad you are living in a community, even if you live ‘alone’. I also imagine you have helped out when others have needed it. so please practice the hard effort of receiving – the givers get a lot out of helping YOU. Hang in there!
Healing wishes, Coral! I too feel lucky to have survived, and it has been 16 wonderful years since my car accident. May your pain lessen each day, and your strength and stamina increase. <3
kathleen
Coral, I join the others in thankfulness for your survival and best wishes for your recovery.
Be wary of people trying to sell you on things you don’t need.
@Lisa, Cookie sheets without a patina are just so ‘last year’. 2025 is the year of patina-ed cookie sheets!
Love this! Such a bummer about your former bins. I currently have a paper bag next to the indoor trash bin that all recyclables go into before heading to the outdoor bin. It’s working because I wash and let all plastics/tins dry before tossing them in. It doesn’t look perfect either- but also – no money spent. Thanks for your consistent inspiration!
That’s a perfect solution as well!
Congratulations on finding a free workable solution and on keeping an item out of the landfill.
In my home office the “wastebasket” was the lining in a large lunch box many, many years ago. In our bedroom the wastebasket is decades old, dented, and ugly but with an old store bag liner you can barely see it. It is also in an out of sight location.
There is no need to buy something like that new.
Somebody needs to care about the environment and keep life real.
I have one of those IKEA bins as well: when I moved in to my old house, it had been left behind. I checked with the estate agent who confirmed with the previous owner that it was left deliberately. Great. But I was surprised by two people saying “get rid and buy something new”. Why??? It was clean, I used it in my tiny laundry cupboard for tumble dryer fluff and it did the job. In my current home, I have a laundry/utility room and it’s my bin in there. Unbelievable. It does the job. Why dump it???? And I ask family/friends to give me their plastic dry cleaning covers. Knot them at the end with the hole for the hanger, turn inside out: Bob’s Your Uncle, free bin liner.
It’s hard to get ahead financially when all your money is tied up in bin liners!
The oldest antique I have is a 1780 pine Yorkshire kitchen dresser. (What Americans would call a hutch.) The pine has been stripped as was fashionable in the past; the dresser would have been painted originally since pine is a cheap wood and not worthy of looking at in the 1780s. I sometimes think about painting it, but I’m too much in love with the beat up wood, with bits chiseled in when someone replaced drawer pulls back in who knows when, various stains and rings from glasses and 250 years of use. Why on earth would I have something new instead of that?
@Rose, my antiques were purchased by a great aunt or great cousin (confusing how she was related) and I still have the purchase receipt. They are quite lovely and work in my 1930s house, even if they are from 1914. I also have a ‘hope chest’ that my great grandfather made during the depression, which is very precious to me and full of things I haven’t looked at for decades. oops.
One piece of furniture that I am so glad to have is a VERY heavy 2 door, 2 drawer cabinet that my dad had in his medical office (and I think he probably built it, considering the solidness – he had a love of 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch plywood.). The counter is stainless and is both battered and a bit paint marked, and the cabinet is a pale yellow. It makes me smile and remember my dad, every time I open a drawer or put something on top. It is really not pretty, but it suits me and is very functional.
I’m happy you posted what you do with wet laundry. I have always wondered what other people do. (We hang it on a clothes hanger on the back porch until it dries out, then pop it in the laundry basket. Not pretty, but neither is mold!)
I let wet kitchen clothes dry on the oven door and then go in the human & dog towels/rags/bedsheets laundry basket which is made of a kind of ratan so quite breezy. Once a month (erm or two..) I sort and wash everything with its kind
Yesterday I wanted one of those fridge magnets that you flip so that it says “clean” or “dirty.” I know it’s silly and I’ve lived 51 years without one, but I’m tired and life is hard right now and it just felt like something I’d like. They were approximately $9 at Target (and up to a RIDICULOUS price). I made one out of a 2″ square flat magnet that I’d taken off the back of last year’s fridge calendar, printed “clean” and “dirty” on my own printer, and glued it on using mod podge.
No cost at all and I got my cute magnet! I find it immensely satisfying when I make the things that would normally be bought. I do wonder though if this isn’t a good use of my time though? I do have chronic illness and can only substitute as I am able, so I do have more time than many. I always say I’m not very good at earning money, but I’m very good at saving it. Which I think is a good skill going into retirement.
@Kara, that’s a smart reuse, but what do you use it for? Your dishwasher?
Sorry, yes, for dishwasher. Totally unnecessary, but useful!
If it lightens your mental load, that’s the most important, I’m glad you made this for yourself. And it’s cute = frugal win-win! I’m sure a creative and frugal mindset is a super useful skill when retired
At our house, it lets my husband know to empty the dishwasher. There were too many, ” I thought they were still dirty” comments
I love your creative solution. I think I might have one of those long lists with a magnet on the back – you know the ones, that are supposed to hang on the fridge. My fridge is stainless so nothing sticks, but I think a magnet would stick to my dishwasher, I actually need something to indicate the dog has been fed! maybe just a clip on the wall above her food…. hmmm
My recycling containers hide under the sink so I don’t care how they look. I just use a reusable shopping bag for glass/PET and a cut-out wine box for metals. Easy enough to pop in the car to bring to the recycling center.
BUT I have mice in my home, and they ate a huge hole out of the shopping bag.. (why they eat plastic is beyond me) So it repaired the hole with duct tape and put the bag in a lidless plastic storage container. The mice haven’t attacked it yet, fingers crossed. And yes I do have a cat, but she couldn’t care less..
I have been looking for something to harness my kitchen laundry and I don’t know why I never thought to have a separate basket for those things. Thank you for the visual of the baskets; it really helps!
I agree. Some things like waste baskets, I couldn’t care less what they look like. They are in a cabinet often and no one sees them except whoever is emptying them out.
I have other ugly-yet-usable kitchen items, like a spatula that the upper tip got a little melted from leaning it on a hot pan too long, that I keep using and will not replace it just because it doesn’t look Martha Stewart worthy. It is still working fine for flipping pancakes and burgers!
This is a topic so close to my heart. I just sat down on a Laz-y-boy recliner that is 25 years old. It has a stain where people have rested their head on the headrest over the years. I looked into having it reupholstered but it was going to cost over $1000. So I found a throw blanket and draped it over the back. It had always been my dream to have a rocking recliner for rocking my babies but such things were scarce and expensive in England. When we moved to the US, and had sold everything we owned, we were living in an apartment that literally had a borrowed table and chairs, a bed for each of us and that’s it. The kids toy box was a suitcase. My husband went out and bought this recliner.
So I think it will always be with us.
I put a XL tee shirt on my husband’s recliner to help keep it clean. It could be washed periodically. I did finally buy a washable cover for the recliner at Walmart. (I was tired at looking at the Darth Vader tee shirt.) An outlay of cash yes, but it can be washed & it keeps the chair clean.
What a fun post, Katy!
My recycling is in a sturdy narrow cardboard box – it is about 16 inches by 5 inches, and fits under the light switch by my back door, on the counter beside my dish rack. I have imagined taking the time to cut off the flaps (that are currently tucked in) and doing a modge-podge treatment, however I also know my follow through is crappy so I haven’t done anything to the box – it sits in its unvarnished glory, constantly reminding me of the kind of kitchen storage containers I have due to the advertising on the sides.
In front of that (tins and paper and hard plastic) recycling box, there are two containers – one is a stainless composting bucket (that is used for chicken kind of compost) and the other is one of my many thrifted stainless bowls (used for ‘real’ compost, coffee grounds, soiled paper, etc). That corner isn’t pretty, but it works.
Glass (that I don’t save for whatever purpose) goes out the back door under a bench – we have to deliver that personally to the local recycle place, which I do about once a year.
Soft plastics go into a repurposed shipping bag (whatever something has come by delivery – ususally sturdy enough to cut a small hole in the side for the doorknob) hanging on the door to the basement. Why there? Well, my kitchen is small and that is a place that works. Those also have to be hand delivered so once the bag is full it moves downstairs into a big plastic bag that my toilet paper comes in. Those bags are piling up, so I do need to plan a trip to the dump. Oh joy.
Real garbage goes into a lidded container my ex bought when the dog decided that an open garbage was an open invitation. My ex also decided to clean it one day and managed to screw up the step system that opened the lid, and the lid has also become quite dented (kind of a wimpy material). I don’t care, it works.
I have a small dollar store wire basket for laundry lint, but I honestly think that is silly, as there is always lint under the lint. I think I am going to check out my supply of containers to see if I have something better.
I love your idea for wet kitchen cloths. I pile mine, carefully, on top of a large glass jar in my laundry room. I keep thinking that one of those circular clothes drying devices with clothes pegs, that can hang on a line or a bar, would be a great solution. However that would take me two more steps to access and … it likely won’t happen
Katy, I have that exact same bowl with the same rust spots!! It’s my popcorn bowl and makes me happy every time i use it because it belonged to my favorite great aunt. Nothing bought from Target will do that!!
Recycles get a quick rinse if needed, might have a short stop but quickly end up in the refuse haulers provided bin. Which will get a good scrubbing this spring – tis a bit of a challenge as it has drain holes. But I’ll take the added time to clean over standing water in the bin.
So interesting to see how different everyone does things. We live rural, no garbage service.
We have 3,32 gallon cans that we take to the transfer station every 6 months or so. No food ever goes into those cans. We always recycle everything. We have cans on the deck for glass, plastic, and cans. Those get taken in periodically. The days recycling is rinsed and at the end of the day walked out to the cans. Maybe 30 feet down the deck. I have a lidded compost bucket on my counter for my compost pile.
Also have a scrap bowl on the counter for chicken goodies. AKA, anything we don’t eat. Bones from meat are frozen until
Dump day. Gosh, writing it out makes it sound complicated. But we don’t have enough trash to pay $50 A month, plus wheel the bins300 ft to the road. Usually around $20 per trip
bins 300 ft to the road
Oops,