10 Creative Ways To Transform Vintage Thrift Store Finds Into Unique DIY Accent Walls

An accent wall can bring interest and style to any room, but decorative items sold specifically for this purpose are often expensive and bland. Repurposing vintage thrift store finds to create an accent wall expands your options, reduces your costs, and lets your creativity shine. You can choose decor that's personally meaningful and tells a story, so putting them together is half the fun. They also make great conversation pieces when you have guests over for dinner. Friends who are hanging out in the kitchen won't be able to resist asking about the antique cooking tools hanging on your wall. 

Collecting and arranging thrift store items to cover an accent wall also frees up space in your home compared to displaying items on tables or elsewhere in the room. This technique is so individualized it can work in any room with nearly any type of decor. Vintage toys bring character to a nursery while a record collection can turn a blank wall in your living room into a mosaic of your favorite bands and songs. You're only limited by your imagination. The following ideas can get you started or serve as a jumping off point.  

Doilies are always in stock at thrift stores. Pick up a few every time you go thrifting and pretty soon you'll have a collection you can use to create a doily wall. You can buy different sizes of embroidery hoops and snap them in, then hang them in a design touching each other to form a larger piece. Thrifted vintage doilies are a great way to decorate an oddly shaped space. You can dye the doilies all the same color or use contrasting colors. For a muted look, use doilies in white and off-white. 

Old records are another plentiful item at thrift stores, and it doesn't matter what condition they're in for this project. Scratched vinyl records take on new life as an accent wall. For extra interest and a bit of a challenge, look for rare records. This could be color pressings, cereal box records, or bone records from Soviet Russia. (These were underground records duplicated on X-ray machines to get around state censorship.) Use large records to create an interesting, interconnected design or smaller 45 records in the shape of an arch. 

Collect mismatched china plates and platters to create a china wall. These look great in a dining room. Formal china isn't nearly as popular as it used to be, so partial sets are easy to find at thrift stores. They can be easily hung with plate hangers. Choose a dominant color that matches the rest of your dining room along with several coordinating colors. The patterns don't need to match as long as the colors work well together. This is an art piece that's easy to add to over time. 

Try grouping multiple pieces with a similar theme. One good option would include antique cookware for an accent wall in your kitchen. You can hang a collection of copper pots, sifters, or wooden spoons. This idea works with almost any type of collectible. You can hang up old license plates or signs for a rustic look. For a child's room, you can use vintage toy cars or trains. For example, you can mount train tracks to the wall to create an interesting pattern then hang the train cars in a line underneath or dispersed around the tracks.

Shadow boxes are usually used to show off a collection. Take this to the next level by collecting a lot of shadow boxes and hanging them close together to create a giant display. This is the perfect place to create a "cabinet of curiosities" or a miniature natural history museum. You can put anything in the shadow boxes. It's great for storing all of the finds your kids bring home: broken bird eggshells, rocks, feathers, and bones. You can leave the shadow boxes as-is or paint them all the same color to make it look more intentional.

A basket wall is a boho classic for a reason. You can personalize it to suit your style. There are no rules other than to look for shallow baskets. Pick bright, colorful baskets for a fun, funky look or stick with neutrals for a traditional vibe. Your basket wall can be as small as three or four baskets or you can have dozens grouped together. You can almost always find baskets at thrift stores, so this is a fun ongoing project. Even if the rest of your trip is a dud, you'll always come away with something to add to your basket wall.

Turn utilitarian pieces into art by collecting old architectural elements. This can be a large door or gate hanging in a living room with an arched ceiling or you can go in the opposite direction and collect small pieces like ornate outlet covers. Create extra impact by painting them all the same color or brighten up an otherwise plain entry way by hanging them on the inside of a door frame. This space would otherwise blend in to the background, but you can make it pop with a little creativity.

If you're trying to decorate a man cave or a game room, look for lighted signs. You may need to have them rewired, but these can create a unique look you can't get anywhere else. Whether you're using beer signs, open signs, or other advertising signs, they bring old-style charm and fun to a room. You can hang one large sign or several smaller ones.

Create a gallery wall of formal painted portraits. You can make this even more fun by adding funky details, such as painting a mustache or party hat on an otherwise stuffy-looking portrait. For endless conversation opportunities, make up stories about the people in the portraits and share them with your friends when they come over for dinner. No one said they had to be your ancestors.

If you have your own art, thrifted frames can provide the perfect backdrop for displaying them. This works well for rotating children's art work, too. Hang the frames without any glass or backing and then hang a clip on the wall inside the frame. Now you have a space where you can hang all of the materpieces your children bring home from school. You can easily rotate out pictures and it looks more impressive than taping drawings to the refrigerator.