Thrifty Home Tour

Join me for a little thrifty tour around my home! From thrift store finds to thrifty diy projects and makeovers, here are some ways I’ve saved money while developing a unique style in my home!

I thought it would be fun this week to do a little tour around my home highlighting everything that has been thrifted, diy’d, and otherwise transformed in a thrifty way! We’ll cover the main living spaces plus a little peak of the master bedroom. I’m pulling photos from all seasons so you’ll get to see a lot of different decor!

I love the creativity and challenge that thrifting and diy offer! The result is as satisfying as the process: a uniquely curated, thrifty home (and a happier wallet!).

Let’s get started on this thrifty little home tour!

My Thrifty Kitchen

The kitchen has to be my favorite room of the house. I feel like it embraces everything I love: cottage style, thrifted and diy elements, and vintage touches. All the plates on the walls and the bowls on my counter were found in thrift stores. The beige vintage crock holds our bananas while the vintage ironstone mixing bowl (from the 1940s) holds sweet potatoes, avocados, or tomatoes depending on the season.

The kitchen curtains are all homemade. You can find the tie-up curtain tutorial here! That little green vintage stepladder peaking out of the corner was an estate sale find for just $20.

Our quirky vintage church pew is another piece that I absolutely adore in our kitchen. My husband was so skeptical when I brought it home from Vintage Market Days, but it has proven to be invaluable. The kids sit there every single day for snack time, to play, the occasional timeout (eek), or just to visit with Mommy. Kids’ shoes and jackets are stored in those baskets underneath as we don’t have a mud room or very functional coat closet.

It underwent a pretty big transformation though! Here’s the before (where my husband was like, “what have you brought into our house?!”):

My Thrifty Dining Room

Technically the dining room is part of our kitchen. When we renovated our kitchen, we knocked down the diving wall between the two rooms turning it into one larger space (best decision ever!). However, this is our only eating space so I’m not sure whether to call it the kitchen or the dining room!

A few months after we got married, my husband and I bought the 1920’s hutch (pictured above) and sideboard (pictured below) from a lady through Craigslist. There was a matching dining table but she had just sold it separately! We paid $250 apiece which felt like a lot of money at the time, but I can appreciate now that it wasn’t too much to ask. I love dark wood mixed with lighter colors and painted furniture. it really helps anchor the space. I will never EVER paint these lovely antique beauties!

The old windows hanging above the sideboard were a Facebook Marketplace score for just $10. It’s fun to change out the wreath that hangs on them seasonally. The pair of lamps were from Goodwill for just a few dollars apiece; I changed out the shades. The vintage crocks under the sideboard were my mom’s – she didn’t want them anymore. The gold mirror on the wall was an inexpensive antique mall find at just $20.

The side chairs were also a Facebook Marketplace find at $15 apiece. I painted and reupholstered them to match the dining table chairs. Can you believe I found 5 different decades of fabric when I took apart those chairs?! Whew! You can learn how to reupholster dining chairs in my tutorial.

My 1920’s hutch is filled with thrifted white ironstone pieces. Amazingly I found a large set of Federalist Ironstone at Goodwill for only $40 and combined it with old English ironstone and other white ironstone pieces – all thrifted!

The biggest thrifty pieces in the room have to be our dining table and chairs! This was the set my husband used as a kid and we got it for free from my In-Laws. You can find the full makeover here, but here’s how it looked when we got it:

Two of the cane back chairs were broken; one was completely busted through. I recaned the two broken chairs, added wood appliqués, painted the bodies of the chairs, and reupholstered the seats.

My husband refinished the table top, I painted the bottom, and it’s like a different set entirely! Paint color is Fusion Mineral Paint “Lamp White” and top is stained in Minwax “Coffee.”

Moving on in our thrifty home tour…

My Thrifty Living Room

By far the most popular thrifty find in my living room is the coffee table. It’s a solid wood Ethan Allen table that I got off Facebook Marketplace for $50. My dad helped me pick it up from a young woman who was making donuts in her apartment with her friends and I swear that coffee table smelled like donuts for months! Here’s how it used to look:

It was good quality, but very beat up. My husband routed the sides to give it a fresh edge then refinished the top in Minwax “Jacobean” and sealed it with polyurethane. I painted the body in Rustoleum Chalked “Linen White.” You can find the post about our coffee table here.

Speaking of tables, our side tables were a Goodwill find for $15 apiece. There is one on each side of the couch.

You can find the blog post and all the details here, but here’s how they used to look!:

The lamps were also a diy project (that involved lots of baking soda!). I got them at Goodwill for $6 apiece and added new shades from Target after I finished transforming them.

Here’s how they originally looked!

You may have seen my recent blog post about my thrifted hutch (that almost wasn’t!). It was a Salavation Army Store find for $50, is solid wood, and is just right for this corner of our living room! The painting over the piano was a Goodwill find for $12.

Here’s a better, albeit Christmasy, photo of the paining. I love the peaceful scene in the painting!

My vintage hutch in the corner is filled with thrifted ironstone and china – all from Goodwill, Salvation Army, and St. Vincent DePaul. Learn how to turn anything into a planter – like this vintage canister – in this blog post!

My Thrifty Family Room

Our family room actually serves as a combination playroom and office. Since our house has three bedrooms and we use them all as bedrooms, we needed a place for our desks and computers alongside the kids’ toys and a space for them to play.

A lot of people assume that this view is my entryway – understandably so! – but it is actually the tiny hallway between the kitchen and family room.

See?

That little black bench (find the story here) was a Facebook Marketplace find that my In-Laws ended up paying for as a birthday present to me. It got a few coats of Fusion Mineral Paint in “Coal Black” as well as a trip to my husband’s workshop for some leg repairs. Here’s how it used to look – it really was that orange/red!

Our family room curtains are inexpensive Ikea curtains that I turned upside down, flipped the top over, and hung with clip rings. You can find the tutorial and details for that hack in this post.

I spy another thrifty diy over in the corner! Why yes, it’s my reupholstered vintage chair! Does anyone remember when I bought it off Facebook Marketplace and it looked like this?

I don’t quite remember what I paid for it – I think $40 – but the lady was even kind enough to deliver it to my house since I wouldn’t be able to fit it in the car with the kids!

This corner of our family room has change a lot over the last few years. The print hanging on the wall was a Salvation Army Store find for a few dollars, the vintage chalkboard was a garage sale purchase for $3, and the floating shelf was made by my husband out of extra wood flooring!

Here’s the shelf being made out of lots of little pieces of scrap flooring! We hung it with black iron brackets from Hobby Lobby.

On the opposite side of the room are our desks. Now I won’t show my husband’s desk (which was made by his grandfather), because I didn’t ask him first, but I’ll show you mine. It’s actually an old vanity. I stashed away the trifold mirror and it makes a great desk! Both the desk and the chair were consignment shop finds back when I was in college. The tulips are in a big kimchi jar!

My Thrifty Master Bedroom

Now I’m not going to share too much in here yet as I’m saving that for a master bedroom reveal post in the next few weeks, but here are a few highlights!

My dresser used to be so dark and heavy for our bedroom. You can find the makeover post here.

We swapped the trifold mirror for a free-hanging round one, painted the dresser, changed out the hardware, and it was so much lighter and fresher for this space!

For some really thrifty and easy decor above the bed I hung a grouping of thrifted baskets. They’re hung with straight pins gently hammered into the wall. This only cost me a few dollars. My “nightstand” is a vintage table from a consignment shop (same one as my desk – I miss that store!).

There is also a thrifted side chair and thrifted vintage art in our bedroom now, but like I said I don’t want to give too much away before the “reveal!”

My kids’ bedrooms also have some thrifty pieces in them but I don’t have any good photos to share right now and you’re probably tired of reading anyway! Kudos if you made it this far!

Well I hope you’ve enjoyed this little thrifty home tour! Thanks so much for reading!

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Blessings,
Melissa