The Art of Thrift Shopping

We are currently working with a client called Hour Children who, on top of providing amazing support for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and their families, also happen to own a fantastic thrift shop. Their event is taking place at the Central Park Boathouse in October. When we were brainstorming ideas for the event, we thought about styling the space with the thrift store furniture.  Guests could lounge on couches and put their cocktails on the actual coffee tables from the shop. Then, as another way to give back to the organization, guests can actually buy the items that evening. We took a little field tip to the thrift shop this week to see if our vision for the event could become a reality.

Like many people who first step into a thrift shop, we were a bit overwhelmed with how much was there. But once we started looking, we realized how much potential there was. So we came up with some tips that we hope will help and inspire you to do some bargain hunting yourself:

1. Get to the bottom of things...literally.

We found this great wooden lounge piece that we would love to use at the event. But we didn't even see it at first! It was buried under an intimidating pile of clothes and bags. Once we did some rearranging, we saw how chic it was.


2. A little paint goes a long way.

Try to look at the actual structure of the piece before you worry about anything else, especially if you are looking for something like a dresser. Something that looks really basic or a little dirty can be instantly jazzed up with a fresh coat of paint and some new knobs.

3. Be patient in your picking.

A lot of times, thrift shops will bundle all similar items together into one small space (like these lamps). Pull out a few that catch your eye from the big pile and place each one on a table for a new perspective. If you have the time and do some shifting, you could actually find the piece that you are looking for amongst the many others that were not exactly your taste.

We love thrift shopping and left with some great inspiration. We hope you will too!