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How to Add Thrift Store Finds to Your Home – Without Buyer’s Regret!

How to Add Thrift Store Finds to Your Home – Without Buyer’s Regret!

Do you love hunting through thrifts stores, flea markets, garage sales and estate sales for good used items to add to your home? Do you sometimes find yourself buying items that catch your eye in the moment but then once you get them home, you have no idea what to do with them? In this post, I’ll be sharing how to add thrift store finds to your home in a way that works for you and your home so that you’re less likely to experience buyer’s regret.

One person’s trash may be another’s treasure but the items we find when we bargain hunt for used items are only treasures if they add something of value to our homes and our lives and don’t just become that much more clutter.

To help you do that, I’m going to share some of my recent thrift store finds, explain why I bought them and how I’ve already used them or how I plan to use them.

Several pieces of Whiteware and 2 colorful vase thrift store finds

How to Add Thrift Store Finds to Your Home

Most of my recent finds have been for the kitchen and dining room but if you’ll continue scrolling, you’ll see my most favorite of all my trash to treasure finds since the time I found a drop leaf table that had been placed out on the curb on garbage day. Dave refinished it for me to use as a cutting table for my sewing room.

I’ll start with these pretty vases because it’s obvious what they’ll be used for.

White floral and purple vase

The purple metal vase I bought specifically to hold our Easter branches. I chose it for the bright pop of color it brought to the table but also because it was metal. That made it perfect for holding the rocks I placed in the bottom of the vase as a weight to keep the Easter branches from tipping over.

Decorated Easter branch with the embroidered fabric cones and other ornaments

The floral vase will be used through the year to hold cut flowers like this bouquet of spring flowers. It’s also decorative all on it’s own so it won’t need to be tucked away in the cabinet with the rest of my vases.

White Floral Vase filled with a bouquet of spring flowers

The white bowl has been added to my collection of serving bowls.

White ceramic bowl with ridged edge

I like to have a variety of different platters to serve appetizers and main courses and it’s nice to have them at different heights, so this footed platter made it’s way home with me.

Rectangular white ceramic footed platter

You can see it in use in my recipe for Lamb Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.

The turkey soup tureen is my second favorite of my recent thrift store finds!

Soup Tureen shaped like a turkey

Now you may be thinking, just how practical, Sue, was it to buy something that will only get used a few times a year at most? How often does a person serve turkey soup, anyway?

First let me say that not everything that you bring into your home, whether it’s from a regular retail store, thrift store or even something purchased online needs to be practical? Not at all!

I’ll be the first to admit that not everything I bring into our home is practical. How boring would that be!

But it should be something that adds value to your home, if only because it makes you smile and adds to it’s beauty.

In the case of the turkey tureen, it definitely makes me smile. Plus it looks great with the turkey platter Dave and the kids gave me years ago.

Turkey platter and turkey tureen

But it’s also going to be practical. Let me explain.

In the first photo of the turkey tureen, it would appear to be a single use item for serving turkey soup but as you can see in the two photos below, once you take the lid off, you actually have four items that can be used in various combinations. 

Top of turkey tureen sitting beside the base

The turkey topper could be used as a table decoration in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. And since in our house, we celebrate both Canadian and American Thanksgiving, it will be used twice as often.

For Thanksgiving and Christmas Days, I’ve decided that it will be perfect to serve the stuffing in. How fun will that be to carry in and place on the table!

So that takes care of it’s use for the holidays.

Overhead photo of top of turkey tureen sitting beside the base

Then during the cooler months of the year, the plate, bowl and ladle can be used to serve soup when we have family and friends over.

The bowl itself is large enough to serve spring and summer salads when we have company over for BBQs.

And the plate on it’s own is a good size for serving meats or appetizers.

So the next time you see something like this turkey tureen that would appear to only have a single purpose, think of other ways you might be able to use it.

Now we come to that item that I mentioned earlier in this post that is my favorite of all my recent thrift store finds.

Granted, it may not look like much in the photo below. In fact, I’ll admit that the stool has definitely seen better days.

It needed a thorough cleaning and new upholstery just to make it halfway presentable.

Thrift store stool with lid and hidden storage

But it was this hidden storage compartment that got the wheels turning for how a $6 stool could be turned into something completely new while at the same time solving two problems in my sewing room.

Thrift store stool lid opened to reveal hidden storage

To see the transformation this stool underwent, click through and read How to Make a Thread Storage Stool. 

I also hope this post on how to add thrift store finds to your home helps you when you’re out scouring thrifts stores, flea markets, garage sales and estate sales to think about how those items will be used and whether they’ll just be adding clutter or will instead be a wonderful new addition.

 

 

 

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Photo collage of white turkey tureen, bowl, plate and vases

 

 

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9 Comments

  • Edith Csokmay
    July 2, 2018 6:22 am

    I love thrift store shopping. I only wish I could find great finds like that stool. Can’t wait to see it all cleaned up!!

  • Leanna
    May 18, 2018 7:56 pm

    I want that stool, I love it and cannot wait to see what you do with it.

    My car was beyond gross after a long winter hauling my big pup around with me. I started on it tonight, and decided I was too tired to go to an Estate sale I knew about. Now I am regretting it. Sigh.

    Love the finds, I tend to like white dishes because you can always use them together.

  • Judy
    May 18, 2018 12:32 pm

    cant wait to see how you refurbish the stool. I have my grandmother’s stool – identical fabric on top – 2 magazine slots on outside – tray inside and my grandmother’s sewing basket, knitting needles etc. I would love to get mine refinished.

  • Susan
    May 6, 2018 11:32 pm

    I think you have much better thrift stores that we do. I have found a very few things to bring home, like a FW card table for only $25! But mostly, I don’t find things that are exciting as is, or fixed up, either. There are some on the other side of town that I need to investigate one of these days when I’m not so busy – next fall, maybe! I really like that pitcher you’re using for flowers. It’s a beauty!

  • Linda
    May 5, 2018 10:04 pm

    I had my mom’s sewing seat/stool for years and sent it off to the Thrift Store after I had it pained and sanded and stained the fancy legs and recovered the lid. Used it for quite a few years and in downsizing … it had to go… Can hardly wait to see what you do with yours!

  • MaryAnne
    May 5, 2018 9:34 pm

    What a great post! I’m a thrift store shopper and love the thrill of the hunt. You never know what treasures you might stumble across. We have one of those open shelf ‘things’ above our kitchen cupboards (wasted space for the most part) and right now it’s holding a collection of interesting tea pots – all thrift store finds. I know that I will enjoy them for a few years and will end up replacing them with something else when the whim strikes. The fact that they’re all thrifted means they didn’t cost much and I can replace them without guilt.

  • Carmen Hoffman
    May 5, 2018 5:36 pm

    I love love love the purple flowered pitcher

  • Jenny Benton
    May 5, 2018 4:51 pm

    Thanks for the tips. I’m not really an opshopper although we have several in our town. Perhaps a I should go and check them out every now and again? Who knows what I might find.

  • Kathleen
    May 5, 2018 10:57 am

    Absolutely love the stool and can’t wait to see it refurbished. I went to the link to read about your drop leaf table and wow, is that beautiful! All Dave’s hard work really made the wood grain show its beauty.

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