Thrifty Treasures

Once upon a time I thought thrift stores were disgusting and I was embarrassed that my mom made us shop at them. They were smelly, the clothes were all these nasty oranges, browns and puke greens or obviously from the closet of someone no longer living. Worst of all, there was no chance that I'd find Guess? jeans, Keds sneakers or Members Only jackets. Shopping in a thrift store was pure torture and I just prayed nobody would see me going into one of those places. My teenage self-esteem suffered greatly. The most humiliating thrift store of all? Goodwill. I knew kids that used the name as an insult. "Dude, that's so ugly you must have gotten it at Goodwill." How did they know! Ugh. It was enough to make a 15 year old want to crawl under a rock.

And today? Yeah, today I'm bragging about my thrift store finds. Because they are awesome. Awesomely from Goodwill too.

The whole loot.

Key hooks, message center and file holder. ($6)

Cool wood box with slots, the label burned into the side. ($2)

Two lamps that I just love.
Someone ran off with the topper but I found it after taking this pic. ($12)

The mugs, a set of 4 (2 pictured) light green crackle stoneware mugs ($1),
one dark olive green mug with "TEA" on the side ($.25) and a "Biscotti" lemons cookie jar ($3).

Drawers cabinet. ($3)

Wood chair. Surprisingly comfortable, if ugly. ($9)

This chair now looks like this:

Jo-Ann's was having a sale on these squares of fabric, 2/$2. I lightly sanded the chair not removing all of the old finish and then painted it with a thin coat of black wood stain letting the old brown show through. I love how it turned out.

I forgot about this little guy! The images were in a different photo album so he completely slipped my mind. A lemon yellow enamel owl trivet. I think he is destined for the wall, to keep an eye on things.

Ready... $.69
SCORE!

I'm not sure if I've grown up enough to not care about shopping in thrift stores or if thrift stores have changed. Probably both. Either way though, the stigma of shopping in thrift stores has lifted for the most part and in fact has an new element of "cool" to it even. Dare I say trendy? Who knows. But I'm not the only one bragging online about my thrift store finds. You should see what Posh Pieces does with the stuff she finds.