The One Piece Of Decor You Should Never Overlook In A Thrift Store (And How To Style It)

Thrift store aisles are usually filled with many amazing items that can level up your home at a low cost. This is especially true if you love vintage items and antiques, which can always be used to add a touch of personality and character to any room. While thrifting expeditions can be hit or miss, one thing you should be looking out for can often be found in the home décor or gardening aisle. Decorative figures, particularly human and animal figures or busts, can be a great way to create interest in your home. You can use them to create centerpieces on tables, mantles, and shelves that help tell a visual story in your space. 

Even better, these items are usually inexpensive and easy to find, coming in all sorts of materials like ceramic, marble, brass, and resin. Look for classic finishes like porcelain, ruddy stone, gold, wood, and iron to help elevate your décor. You can also take a colored animal or human figure and treat it with paint to make it look charming and old. While thrift stores are the best place to find them at a bargain, you can also find these pieces at flea markets and antique stores, though you will often pay more for them, especially for larger items.

Use these unique pieces combined with other decorative accents like pretty bowls, books, artwork, and trays. They can also be fun to tuck alone in a select place in your home for people to come upon, like next to the bathroom sink or inside a planter. Smaller figurines can be whimsical when resting on a curio shelf with other small objects in an arrangement that incorporates interesting artifacts and texture. They also look amazing when placed in glass cloche jars, alone or with other objects. Or combine them with other classic elements like greenery, taper candles, books, and tapestries for a dark academia style tableau. Other great elements to look for include finials, scrollwork pieces, or other architectural elements. You can also use marble platforms, often found on the bottoms of old trophies, to add height to your arrangements. 

Once you've found the perfect figures, you can also perform some DIY thrift flips you can complete over a weekend to upcycle them for other purposes, like transforming them into lamps with the help of a drill and a lamp kit if they are hollow. You can also incorporate decorative busts in your décor by turning them into a stylish jewelry holder by simply draping your favorite necklaces and bracelets over the top. If you find one with a finish that doesn't work with your décor, just add some white, matte black, or gold paint. You could also add a textured stone spray paint to get a natural texture.