The good, the bad, and the hilariously ugly: a tour of our local Salvation Army

I think I might have some sort of thrift-store-sniffing-out ability. It seems that no matter where I am, I can zone in on the closest thrift store. And since I've done so much thrift shopping, I'm usually able to navigate the stores pretty quickly.

On Friday I stopped by the Salvation Army across the street from work. I only had about 20 minutes (lunch hour shopping, anyone?), but I still managed to find some doozies. I came home with two vases, a tea pot, and a navy blue leather belt, but I took photos of of just about anything that caught my eye, good or bad. I was doing it all surreptitiously, too, lest the Salvation Army employees kick me out. (When my sister visited me in NYC one time, she took a photo of the Chanel sign at Bloomingdales, and was promptly told she couldn't do that. The experience scarred me for life. Suck it, Chanel.)

So here's what I found, starting with something that falls squarely into the "good" category:

This chair was on sale for $15, and would be very pretty in my "getting ready" room, a little room upstairs where I have my vanity and dresser. (Photos coming soon!)

The upholstery was really clean and in good shape, which is so rare for upholstered pieces in thrift stores. Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for the arms:

Isn't that carved detail so pretty? The arms need refinishing, but Pete is a master at stuff like that so I'm confident we could get the chair looking good as new. Why didn't I buy it? Well, I don't really need the chair. It would mostly be a prop, something to look pretty but not get a lot of use. I may go back for it later this week if I'm still thinking about it, we'll see.

By the way, I'm a huge proponent of walking away from something if you're not 100% sure about it. Are you still thinking about it in a few hours, days, or a week? Go back and see how you feel. If it's gone, oh well. If it had really been a can't-live-without-it piece, you would have jumped on it immediately. Just because something is cheap and in good shape doesn't mean you have to haul it home with you. You can always try my tactic: text a photo or two of it to someone you think could use it and try to get them to buy it. Then you can visit it!

Also in the good furniture category was this set of dining chairs:

They reminded me of Thonet chairs. I loved the nail head trim on the seats, but the brown vinyl would need replacing. I'm not in the market for dining chairs, but if I was I would have been really tempted by these.

Rounding the corner, I spotted these bamboo and smoked glass side tables:

They were cool, but really impractical. They sat too low to the ground to be very useful. I thought about getting them for our sun room (they were $10 for the pair), but we were given a bamboo sofa and armchair for that space and I thought it might be bamboo overload.

Lastly, I saw this desk for $55. It was grossly overpriced for the condition it was in - the whole thing needed refinishing and it was missing some of the hardware. But the legs are so cool and the shape is very pretty and classic:

Speaking of ambitious asking prices, It seems like every thrift store has some weirdly overpriced junk. Case in point: this old trunk, with which Craigslist and other thrift stores are flooded:

Sorry so fuzzy. See above re: being frightened of taking photos, and therefore having to move really fast.

They wanted $200 for that thing, on sale! Ridiculous. This particular Salvation Army is not in the best area of town, and judging by the other patrons, anything that costs $200 is going to be sitting there for a long, long time. This was one of the few times that I felt like kind of a jerk for shopping there, like I should leave the cheap merchandise to people who simply can't afford to outfit themselves or their homes any other way.

The gross overpricing didn't stop at furniture, either. Here's a round-up of some of the crap that literally made me exclaim out loud that they were nuts for asking that much:

Yup, you're reading that right. $9 for a serving bowl.

These beauties were $12 and $15, respectively.

$23 for a bizarre, 3D piece of art straight from the 80s.

I really just don't know who is in charge of pricing. It was like going to H&M. You'll pick something up and be shocked by either how cheap or how expensive it is. Their tank tops are like $4 a piece, but a wool-blend skirt is $60? You tell me.

Continuing with the round-ups, here are things I thought were particularly funny or weird. Maybe both.

I believe that is a bread basket made to look like a loaf of bread. It reminded me of the Hamburglar.

Possibly this is a cheese plate thingie? The little pilgrim couple made me laugh. I can't tell if they're fighting or kissing over that cauldron of...?

Need some overstock wallpaper from the 80s? Help yourself. It could be $1 a roll, or $17 a roll. I don't know.

This actually made me kind of sad. These little suede baby booties looked like the kind of thing you'd keep for sentimental reasons.

I thought this pretty mirror with the floral print border would be cute in the guest room. Then I turned it over.

It's a GD music box. It started playing randomly, without provocation, which I find to be immensely creepy.

Tiny raspberry-shaped candle. They had a whole mess of these. Imagine that.

Now for the "I almost bought this but didn't" round-up:

With a new shade I thought this lamp would be gorgeous, but for $10 and nowhere to put it, I left it there. Someone go buy it and display it in your house so I can be friends with it and take it to the movies sometime!

This pretty little faceted dish was only $0.80, but it was plastic and that turned me off.

This metal wall art was $4 and would be kind of cool painted in a bright, solid color, but I didn't love it enough to bother.

And hey, you know what's never happened to me (that I can remember, anyway)? Finding duplicates of stuff I've bought. On Friday I found two!

Dang it! I just bought that very same soap bottle for $2, and I had to dump and wash out all the nasty lotion that came with it. This one was only $0.79 and needed a washing, but was empty.

I just bought the larger version of this frame, too! I got mine for $1, I think. I almost picked up this one but then I remembered that the frame itself is already vaguely tacky and having two of them would just be over the top.

Now, for the junk I actually did buy:

A cute little retro tea pot for the display cabinets in the kitchen. It was $1.59.

BIRDIE! I loved the dramatic colors on this vase and it was a nice big size for $1.99. It has a prominent spot above the fireplace now.

I almost didn't get this tall vase for $2.99, but I'm glad I did. The base is kind of a marbled lighter orange that's really pretty in person.

I didn't get a photo of the belt I got for $1, but it's very cool. Nice soft navy leather with brass hardware. Navy accessories can be challenging to find, and I wear them a lot in the summer.

So all in all, the Salvation Army across the street is exactly like every other thrift store I go to: thoroughly hit-or-miss, with some funny junk thrown in for good measure. I hope you enjoyed this unnecessarily long post and the billions of pictures that accompany it. If I had to come up with a moral of the story, I guess it would be this: not every trip has to yield something super spectacular, and it's perfectly fine to walk away from something even if it's cheap and you can conjure up a use for it. But it is mostly definitely NOT okay to walk away from something with pretty birds on it. NOT OKAY AT ALL.

Have a good Sunday, everyone!

xoxo,

Leigh