How-to Make a Thrift List for Better Home Decor
Last week, I had one week of sacred PTO. Normally, this would be spent losing a day or two to traveling somewhere beautiful, soemtimes new and experiencing a place I don’t see everyday. But it’s 2020 y’all and we’re living in a Covid-19 world. Expectations have lowered, and i’m doing just fine.
So after returning from a brief sojourn 30-minutes outside of town to Wimberley…
Alex holding George Michael, Megan “holding” Miley Cyrus in Wimberley, TX.
I spent 3 blessed days of my vacation doing what I like to call:
Long-form Thrifting, Verb: The act of hitting every nook and cranny of every thrift store in your geography until they all close.
It’s been a while since I have thrifted, so I decided to treat it like it was my job for 3 days, 9-5pm, with all the necessary preparations. This included safety masking up, toting wipes and a lot of hand sanitizer, to stock up on design wish-list items, get inspired for upcoming projects and seasons, and then slink back into quarantine with my loot.
Before the pandemic, I started doing thrift sprints. I would save up my money and ideas which helped me curate better collections and create more dynamic decor vignettes for relatively cheap. I also found that my unique style started to show through as a result of thrifting with intention.
Thrift List, Noun: A meaningful grouping of items you would like to score at a thrift store, in this case for home design
The biggest game changer for me in finding my unique style, was using a thrift list to figure out what I was looking for.
You can make your list of items however you like to make lists. This can be a category in your Saved Posts on Instagram, a Pinterest Board, a note in your phone, or pen and paper because you’re old school like that.
4 categories for thrift lists
There are typically four types of items on my thrift list that will help you get started.
Items you need, that you will buy new if you don’t find them
This category is for things that you need, are more affordable when you thrift them and if you don’t find them at a thrift store you will likely revert to buying new. I actually think this category is too often neglected when thrifting. My sister moved recently and we all know those weird items that somehow never make it from house A to B in a move that you buy new every single time at Target. Think waste bins, something to put your toothbrush in, a paper towel roll holder - I would venture to guess in our lifetimes we have purchased 10x the appropriate amount of these items.
Thrift stores have so many housewares in almost perfect, if not new condition. In fact, i’ve encountered many Goodwill’s that receive overstock items from Target and other retailers.
Examples of items that end-up on this list: furniture that I don’t have and need (ex: bedside tables for the guest room), a pizza stone (how do we still not have a pizza stone?), a replacement french press for one that I carelessly broke
collections or inspired PROJECT specific items
This is the category to get real creative and inspired, they are the items that will punctuate your personal style or a specific styled project. These aren’t items you have to have today, so you can spend some time building your supplies from thrifted finds. Rely on your inspiration boards/lists for what you are trying to design to narrow your search down.
Example: If you want to build a gallery wall using thrifted art (an extremely affordable way to get a very luxury look), spend time on Pinterest or Instagram determining what you like and saving these ideas. This will help specify your search to something like:
Small and medium floral oil paintings in yellow, green, and pink
Or
Pastoral images in neutral warm tones
Or my personal favorite,
Sultry looking women with exposed nipple(s), mid-century kitsch vibe (to be fair, this might be too specific, but it’s worked for me TWICE)
Examples of other items that end-up on this list: Candlestick holders for seasonal displays, taper candles in different sizes/shapes and colors, vintage holiday glassware and decor, brass bookends in unique shapes, coffee table books around themes I love (vintage design, vintage home and garden, weird oddly specific categories)
3. evergreen decor items
These are items that you can always use to supplement your home decor and are great to source at thrift stores. Most of the time they serve some sort of utility, like baskets for misc. things on your coffee table or trays that you can use to add texture to your shelf designs. Focus on finding versions of these items that you like since they are easier to find, picking a color scheme or characteristic you look for.
Examples of other items that end up on this list: vintage glassware, vintage books in different color schemes, apothecary bottles to use as bud vases, magazine racks, mirrors, plant stands, larger ceramic planters and vases to fill the larger, lower spaces on shelves and odd corners of the house.
3. DREAM WISH LIST
These are items you would put on a registry. In fact, consider this part of your list the dream registry you deserve for being a human, no marriage or baby required. You may already have a version of these items based on what you could afford at the time or because you didn’t have a strong opinion on what you wanted. It’s the Kitchen-aid mixer in a color that was discontinued, a le creuset kettle or a set of rose gold silverware.
By thrifting, the cost may seem like a sticker shock in Salvation Army (you want me to pay $24.99 for anything?!) but in the outside world you would likely make due with what you have or pay a hell of a lot more.
So, what goes on your list?
So you now know the types of things you could put on your list, but maybe you’re still a little lost on what goes on your list. This is normal, it’s may not even be worth mentioning to your therapist. It’s a form of easily solved existential crisis.
the things that make you happy and the things that make you unique
I’ve been trying to pull more elements of my husband’s personality into our house, so I did a very simple version of this with him. He loves: Playing baseball, enjoying a nice tequila, music and reading. From there, I just mapped those interests to objects:
Geography: a topographic map of California I thrifted long ago.
Playing baseball: vintage baseball trophies I found by chance at the Austin Antique Mall on a 55% off booth sale.
Enjoying a nice tequila: curated selection of margarita glasses, shot glasses, decanter and tequilas on a thrifted tray.
Reading: a cool two-book set “for Intelligent Men” by Aasmiov I found at Round Rock Antique Mall on a 50% off booth sale (can you tell I like sales?)
Music: curated selection of his records in a thrifted vintage train tote.
Taking stock of what you love can seem silly. These don’t have to be directly mapped to hobbies and interests, like in my husband’s example. But maybe his curated tray of tequila and margarita glasses, becomes your curated tray of champagne flutes, bowl of oranges and a pretty bottle of gin for French 75s.
This process of discovery can also just highlight colors, patterns or themes that make you happy, or expose the fact that heavy marble paperweights soothe you in an inexplicable way.
2. Determine your next few design projects on deck that will require supplies
Most commonly I talk to people who really want to style their shelves, entry tables or bedside tables. Thrift stores are your best friend for these projects. Skip spending $20 for a palatable vase at Target, you will either find objects you love or a similarly palatable vase for $3.99. Making objects you style with affordable will give you more flexibility to play with combinations.
3. Build your inspiration boards
You can take this as far as you want. This could be one board for home decor or design you are visually drawn to, or you could have multiple boards with specific purposes like “Textures I like.” Continue to treat this like you are getting to know yourself and be curious about your own patterns. This will help you take an aisle of baskets at a thrift store and start to recognize things like: you really only like low baskets with no handles in light colors.
Your style is your guide
A major benefit of this thrift list practice is narrowing your search in an often overwhelming thrift experience. The second, and in my opinion, most important benefit is that it starts to teach you more about your style.
When you start to save the design elements you like regularly you don’t need to articulate why you like them, but over time you can look at the sum of the parts and pick-up on patterns and trends. I noticed about two months ago I started saving every candle stick display I saw on Instagram and realized, I don’t own a single taper candle. So, it became an item on the list.
Once you have a general idea of what you’re looking for, availability will guide you. I’m not sure if this is an Austin thing right now but I am finding that thrift stores are littered with quality vintage crystal at dirt-cheap prices. So my love for candlestick displays, combined the availability of crystal in all the thrifts led me to picking up almost a dozen options that fit within my vibe and aesthetic.
But don’t let your list hold you back too much. Be guided by what sparks joy to quote Marie Kondo. Several of my collections sprouted from seeing one item I loved in a thrift store, buying it on a whim and building around it. These will potentially become your most unique collections because they are 100% based on what you see and love vs. curated by the internet.
Once you’ve spent some time observing what you like, explored putting these items together and using them in your house - you can take it to the next level and start actually defining what your personal design style is, which naturally changes and evolves but is really helpful once you can articulate what your aspirational vibe is for your home.
Right now for me it’s: Wes Anderson meets Texas Tiki. It doesn’t have to be eloquent, or make sense to anyone but you.