The Unexpected Way You Should Be Using Thrifted Bowls As Decor In Your Kitchen

Many of us might be familiar with the thrifting adage: one person's bowl is another person's treasured kitchen decor. Well, the saying might not go quite like that, but it is a reasonable suggestion by many avid secondhand shoppers to keep your eyes peeled for gorgeous decorative bowls. Your next find could become a staple in your kitchen decor, helping you tackle countertop clutter and add some personal flair to your home. While it's easy to assume a bowl is meant for holding delicious fruits or stashing some kitchen essentials in a more luxe container, there are actually several clever ways to repurpose a mixing bowl around the house, including changing its functionality on your kitchen counter.

A clever hack to repurpose a decorative bowl and use it as more than a container is to turn it into a riser. Flip the bowl over and place it, lip down, on the countertop so that the bottom of the bowl faces upward. The flatter the bottom of your bowl, the better. This creates the perfect raised stand to display your kitchen goods and decorations, keeping them off the counter and adding an elegant touch to the space. This brilliant hack could make your kitchen more aesthetic, helping you navigate visual clutter and organization while adding more personality to your home.

Using a bowl as a riser is a great way to transform an ordinary household product into something that serves multiple purposes. When used as decor, the bowl can keep items off the counter, visually raising or lifting a piece you love while drawing the eyes upward. It may also help keep similar items organized while offering added aesthetic appeal. With a wide range of bowls to choose from, you could customize the look to suit your space, choosing a taller piece or a flatter one. Or you can combine a few different bowls of varying heights, widths, and textures in a group to create a multi-tiered riser display.

It's important to note that not every bowl is ideal for this trick. The larger the flat surface of the bottom of the bowl is, the more you can stack on it once it's flipped to a riser. Rounded bowls with minimal flat surfacing won't provide as much area for your decor, and the items might slide off the edges easily. Flip over the bowls you're considering to see how suited the bottom is to serve as a riser. You can even test out a few items on top of it to see how well they work.

If you're working on a tight budget or prefer to have a quick solution, you could DIY a riser using affordable plastic dishware instead. Grab a plastic plate and bowl brand new, or thrift a unique plate and cup from a secondhand store. Flip the bowl upside down and glue the plate to the bottom of the bowl. This can help widen the flat display part of the DIY riser, particularly for bowls that aren't very large. Still, the bowl acts as a riser, and the entire ensemble performs the same function. You can also spray paint the plastic dishware to change the color. A plastic bowl may not achieve the same luxe effect as a decorative wooden or stone bowl. However, you could DIY a rustic pottery bowl using Dollar Tree products, allowing you to attain that high-end look on a budget and use it as a riser.

Another option is to source two similar bowls and glue the bowls on top of one another to create a taller riser. To pull this off, be sure to glue the lip or edge of each bowl together so that the flat bottom of one bowl is available to place decor on top. Keep in mind that gluing the bowl to create a taller or wider riser will potentially impact its multifunctionality — you'll no longer be able to flip the bowls over and put items inside of them. Instead of super glue, you could possibly use glue dots or Command strips on some of these DIY bowl-turned-riser projects. However, the ensemble may not be as sturdy.