Garbage? My Free Stainless Steel Grill

Sometimes you just get lucky… and when that happens, you have to swallow your pride and tell youself that you DON’T CARE who sees you or how “cheap” you look.  You have to just go out and take your neighbor’s garbage!

Garbage picking?  What?  Heather, you’ve gone too far this time!

Yeah?  Well take a look at this piece of “garbage!”



This ”unsightly” piece of trash was outside of my neighbor’s house, waiting for the garbage man to take it away.

Here’s the catch…my neighbor lives in the home directly behind my house, so I had to beg  my husband to walk all the way around the block and drag this grill through the neighborhood back to our house. 

Embarassing?  You bet!  What’s worse?  Two days later, I was in my backyard and my neighbor says, “I thought I got rid of that thing, then I look out my window and it’s staring at me from your yard!”  Oy!  A little embarassing!

Nevermind, though, because this grill still has many more summers in it and I am just the person to be it’s new caretaker.  First, the icky part:



Not looking so great now, is it?  A little “used” and filthy.  Well, that’s what cleaners and elbow grease is for!  I could only do two treatments of that caustic Easy-Off for Grills before I started getting a little dizzy, so I’ll have to come back to it again in a week, but here’s the result of my first round of scrubbing:



Two more applications of Easy-Off and I bet it will be sparking!  The outside already looked pretty good, but I had some Stainless Steel Polish on hand and gave the exterior a good buff (by the way, Stainless Steel Polish also does wonders on a stainless steel sink – it’ll make it look brand new).



I do love a high shine!

My hubby got to work hooking up a new propane tank and testing all of the knobs.  Everything works great except the starter button.  No worries, because a long grill lighter does the trick!  I picked up a cheap grill cover from Walmart for $8.00 and now it is protected from deteriorating any further.  We’ll be using this grill for years to come and my neighbor will be wondering why he threw away such a nice grill!

The Fake-It Yourself Breakdown:

Stainless Steel “Garbage” Grill (Free Grill, $5.00 Easy-Off Grill Cleaner, $8.00 Grill Cover, $50.00 Refillable Propane Tank)

Fake-It Yourself Cost:  $63.00

Front Avenue Char-Broil Grill ($349.00), plus you’d still need the Propane Tank ($50.00) and the Cover ($8.00) 

Total Fake-It Yourself Savings: $344.00