The Little-Known Alternative To Thrift Stores That's Always Full Of Vintage Gold

If you love filling your home with unique and beautiful objects from decades past, you are likely well-acquainted with the many venues where you can find these things, be it thrift stores, antique stalls, flea markets, or online marketplaces and auctions. Architectural salvage shops or yards, however, are an often-overlooked alternative to thrift stores to find vintage things, though they usually focus more on building and interior elements than décor itself. You can typically find rare pieces harvested from older homes and buildings, including vintage windows, moldings, and lighting fixtures aplenty. The pure abundance of these older home treasures can be great to add character and a sense of history to even the newest construction.

This is an eco-friendly way to fill your home with upcycled and recycled materials like salvaged lumber, beams, fencing, flooring, and cabinetry. You can also find items that are perfect for repurposing and DIY endeavors, like hardware and antique millwork details. If you are restoring an older home, you may even find a perfect match for existing design eras from another location. These elements can add the same character and charm of an older house to a more generic new build, and give your home an older, lived-in feel.

There are many ways to use architectural salvage in your home. Salvage shops can be a great source for materials that have a sense of history and solid construction. If you are outfitting a home from the ground up or remodeling, look for things like salvaged wood flooring, vintage kitchen cabinets, antique moldings, bookshelves, and doors, as well as smaller elements like old doorknobs, vintage hardware, and lighting fixtures like sconces and chandeliers. Other popular finds include plaster or wood ceiling medallions, carved corbels, vintage signs or letters, metal grates, shutters, mirrors, and stained glass panels. They are also an excellent source for fireplace mantles and surrounds.

Use these elements as they were intended in an older home restoration or add them to a boring builder-grade new home to add character and personality. There are also many cool DIYs and repurposing projects to reuse older pieces in new ways. Use a plaster ceiling medallion as wall art for a vintage traditional look. Or, repurpose old or broken spindles as chic pillar candle holders. Windows and doors can be especially useful for outdoor projects, where you can create things like unique DIY privacy fences, beautiful rustic greenhouses, or stylish garden potting sheds using these well-worn architectural pieces.

If you're shopping for larger elements, make sure you have your specifications and measurements noted or committed to memory before you hit the store. While some elements will be ready to use as they are, others might require refurbishing or repair, so factor that into your budget when deciding to buy. Before buying vintage lighting, in particular, you should factor in any necessary rewiring to work in a modern home.

Shopping in a salvage store can be as much of an adventure as other vintage and antique venues, with a need to check back often since pieces cycle in and out. You are likely to see an overturn of goods fairly regularly, which means it's important to strike when the iron is hot if you see something you love. You can also follow many salvage shops or yards on social media to see what may be coming in.