The Art of Thrifting Up - Recycling Home Decor

The Art of “Thrifting Up”

Recycling Home Decor

About 6-8 months ago we decided we needed either to move into a new more modern home or redecorate. Our cottage on Acorn Hill looked a little tired, full of junk. It needed some MOJO! We decided to stay put – having raised our kids here and put so much time and love into fixing the old place up. It was home but we needed a lift.

We were excited about designing a new Mod collection of home décor, and so decided to use our home as a laboratory! Yancey had a vision for some bold colors and started flying around the place with a paint brush and a wild look in her eye. Who was I to stand in her way? Plus, paint is cheap and a lot of our furniture isn’t sacred. Some pieces are nice antiques with beautiful wood and carving – we left those alone, but the other pieces, those we bought new or used, and pieces I grew up with in my bedroom were hungry for a bold paintover.

Since that time, we’ve enjoyed researching mid-century design and trolling around thrift, consignment and “antique” stores for gems.

Sometimes you find something amazing, sometimes you return empty handed. The coolness is that, at least right now, our vision is unique enough where we live that most mid-century furniture is surprisingly inexpensive, and some we’ve even picked up for $5 at Goodwill. You can always splash it with a wild paint color, right?

The idea we’ve hatched is to Thrift –Up. That is to find what you need that is pretty cool now, for a small price, and then when you find something better, trade it in at the thrift store and refresh with the new, the better crafted, the unique. With a small home like ours, it make sense to trade furniture out instead of pack-ratting them. We like to trade out and let others enjoy the pieces. Good recycling! Plus its FUN!.

In our neighborhood we can bring some pieces to the curb for others to adopt, which happens quite often. We’ve adopted several pieces over the years ourselves, including 4 chairs for our former dining room that Yancey painted a brilliant Yves Klein blue – we enjoyed these for years!

Happy Thrifting!

Shine on! Braxton